Robot Dreams | Review
© Arcadia Motion Pictures, Noodles Production, Les Films du Worso, RTVE & Moviestar Plus+
When Philip K. Dick wondered if androids dream of electric sheep, he was hardly aware that this question would write itself into the DNA of every robot-adjacent story to come. Written and directed by Pablo Berger, Robot Dreams meditates on similar philosophies – as evidenced through its title – choosing the medium of dialogue-less cinema as its vehicle, as opposed to the written word or Harrison Ford.
We open on 2D animated, anthropomorphised animal-populated New York, a city so dense with people one barely has a centimetre to catch a particle of fresh air. This is the case for all but Dog, someone destined to waste away in his one bedroom apartment, stuck in a cycle of one-sided games of Pong and mac ‘n’ cheese ready meals. His loneliness is suffocating. Dog can barely stand to see his reflection for more than a few moments, the empty space evidently taunting and gnawing at his psyche.
By luck, Dog comes across an ad for robots specifically designed to be your pal. He wastes no time in ordering one. In a cardboard box and in need of assembly, Robot enters Dog’s life, infusing it with colour and joy for the first time after he figuratively, and literally, makes a friend.
© Arcadia Motion Pictures, Noodles Production, Les Films du Worso, RTVE & Moviestar Plus+
The discovery of connection completely transforms Dog’s life. Whether that connection was natural, with another living being, or manufactured is besides the point. Dog finally has someone to share his life with. Visually, Dog goes from being shrouded in shadow to cast in sunlight, hand in hand with Robot. A day out at the beach feels like the zenith of their summery joy, until Robot’s enthusiasm over the ocean sees his limbs power down. Through a lack of brute force and a series of unlucky events, Dog has to abandon Robot on this beach for an entire year; a person grasping emotional connection for the first time is almost immediately forced to let go.
The depth and complexity of Robot’s thoughts are left unclear until the android dreams. Nothing surrounds Robot but sky and sand, a purgatory where the only pastime is to imagine. Every possibility of a reunion with Dog crosses his mind. What if I’m freed and can never find him again? What if he orders another robot? What if I never see him again at all? The reveal of what runs through Robot’s head is staggering, a cinematic accomplishment only possible through animation, a reminder that Dog had an entire life before Robot, but Robot’s existence has been defined by having Dog’s hand in his.
Having the film framed by Dog’s and Robot’s dreams allows for the animation to break into more experimental and surrealist territories, with snowmen coming to life and fourth walls being broken. Though its 2D style is never interrupted, Robot Dreams is constantly looking to subvert what you expect this world to be.
© Arcadia Motion Pictures, Noodles Production, Les Films du Worso, RTVE & Moviestar Plus+
However, the worldbuilding is a loose thread that the film never quite cuts clean. The issues are minor but can send your brain to another place entirely. In a world of anthropomorphic animals, birds are somehow exempt from human-like behaviour, there are oddly racialised characters such as an elephant cab driver wearing a turban, and surely this society would see fishing as a crime against humanity? In a movie where the emotional aspect is so overwhelming, the last thing you want is the audience caught on a silly small detail.
Luckily, Robot Dreams is a film whose core ideas can push past the odd gripe. The film examines the way we connect with people, with places, with objects. We form bonds for the sake of warmth, but as time’s arrow marches, the sun moves along with it and we have to let things go in order to feel happy again. The connection shared between Dog and Robot was once the only spark of light each of them had ever experienced, but eventually their lingering thoughts of each other only worked to strengthen the distance between them and conjure pain.
Dog and Robot taught each other that happiness, love and friendship existed, freeing them to explore it in new phases of their lives. Robot Dreams forces us to consider the inevitability of that fact, but also the coldness that it takes to leave someone in the past. We can sometimes be so trapped within our own loneliness that we forget that the people in our lives exist for more than to give us love. They may seem like androids, finely programmed to provide you with joy, but they dream too.