Animated adventure will break your heart – and fill you with joy
Somewhat overshadowed by the Academy Award success of fellow silent movie The Artist, Pablo Berger’s 2012 homage to both the great European fairytales (Snow White, Beauty and the Beast) and cinematic horrors of the 1920s (Nosferatu, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) was compelling, utterly charming and simply magical.
Nightmare-inducing and bewitching all at once, the vivid imagery conjured up by the black-and-white Blancanieves made it feel like the missing link between the fever-dream metaphors of Pedro Almodovar (All About My Mother) and the childhood fears so terrifically mined by Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth).
More than a decade on and the Spanish writer-director is rightly back in the limelight, earning plenty of accolades and an Oscar nomination for this beautiful and heart wrenching dialoguefree animated adventure.
An adaptation of the 2007 comic of the same name by Sara Varon, Robot Dreams’ 1984 New York-set tale feels like a Woody Allen-Nora Ephron-esque Gotham romance, if reimagined by Jacques Tati and populated by an alternative cast of Disney’s Zootopia.
And while kids will love the Pixar-esque buddy comedy conceit at its core, as an adult, you’ll be hard pressed to keep your emotions at bay as this – at times – both joyously uplifting and unrelentingly sad story of friendship and fear plays out.
When we first meet Dog Varon, he lives a lonely existence in the Big Apple’s East Village, playing solo Pong and reheating frozen mac-and-cheese dinners-for-one. While flicking through the channels, he stumbles across an ad for a “robot friend” – the Amica 2000.
Immediately calling 1-800-55 ROBOT, he’s delighted when the Berger Corp kitset finally arrives, happy to spend the hours needed to transform it into his new companion, while munching on takeout pizza and drinking Tab.
Although Robot’s mimicry of behaviour good and bad does cause Dog some conniptions, the pair quickly become inseparable. Buoyed by a trip to Central Park where they wowed a crowd with a rollerskating duet, Dog decides the beach should be their next stop. It’s a journey he will come to deeply regret.
Robot’s curiosity leads to extensive time in the water, all initially going swimmingly until his joints stiffen and paralysis sets in. Suddenly, Dog can’t move him off the beach, dusk has fallen and there’s no-one around to assist.
Reluctantly, he heads back to their apartment, determined to find a solution and return as soon as possible the next day to rescue his companion. Unfortunately, timing, rules and regulations mean that may not be as simple as Dog would hope.
Filled with clever match shots, colourful characters (a free-spirited duck, a Chupa Chups-loving raccoon), a terrific soundtrack (this will earn Earth, Wind & Fire’s anthemic September a whole army of new fans) and a series of simply fabulous flights of fancy (a Busby Berkeley–esque dance number here, a surreal bowling game with a snowman there), Robot Dreams is an endearing, engrossing, delightfully enveloping tale that multiple generations can fully enjoy.
Be warned though, this could leave you in a puddle of tears. I don’t think I’ve seen anything quite so heartbreaking as the fear in Dog’s eyes as he realises his pal is stuck, he doesn’t have the strength to move him and then discovers the only payphone in the area has had its cord cut. And, believe me, that’s not the only time you’ll be welling up either.
Weirdly – and I know I’m not the first person to observe this – Robot Dreams also feels like the perfect companion piece to Greta Lee’s magnificent and haunting Past Lives.
Strip away their very different approaches and palettes and you’ll find similar themes of love, loss, longing and acceptance that truly resonate.
Robot Dreams is in select cinemas nationwide.