The marvels of Robot Dreams defend our last hopes.
Anthropomorphism, the attribution of human traits to an animal or inanimate object, is the time-honored way cartoonists and movie animators made points about life — and made their appeal — to readers and viewers. It isn’t necessarily childish when Bugs Bunny, Pepé Le Pew, Porky Pig, or Tom and Jerry act like people, but lesser cartoons (Mickey Mouse, Pixar) use the practice for cheap sentimentality — and the market for tie-in products. But in the Spanish animated film Robot Dreams, director Pablo Berger uses anthropomorphism to explore the complexity of human passions.
That means Robot Dreams is a cartoon for adults. Berger understands the need to analyze human desire in the modern world. An early image of the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers sets time and place, but it also provides a context for this bedtime story about love and companionship. When Dog purchases a mail-order Robot to end his couch-potato loneliness, their rapport is an analogy for lost emotional connection — the ultimate citizenship.
The pressure is on to let AI steal our individuality, yet Berger concocts wondrous ways to convey feelings that Dog and Robot have for each other — not just shared enjoyment of company, but the more complicated and terrifying feelings of loss when the pair is separated for moments, seasons, or permanently. Robot Dreams was recently shown at the International Children’s Film Festival, but this doesn’t limit its significance any more than the fact that this film with no dialogue has been nominated for Best Animated Feature at this year’s Academy Awards. The latter commendation suggests that the film should be scrutinized more for its real artistry than for its babysitting potential.
Berger’s understanding of how bedtime stories reflect social needs is fully expressed in these flat, line-drawn images. Dog’s cute, round curves and Robot’s hard, straight angles complement their characters as they enjoy early 1980s New York (Berger’s turf during his foreign-student years), with Berger commemorating the city’s features from the East Village to Chelsea to Coney Island.
The film is nostalgic and analytical of urban life’s multiplicity and its unavoidable anonymity. Animal and mechanical behaviors merge metaphorically to represent the individual and society. Children cannot be expected to understand what makes this depiction of the desires and aspirations that define urban life so charming. Berger achieves this through cartoon craft and pop music — Earth, Wind & Fire, the traditional “Danny Boy.” (Oddly missing: George Clinton’s quintessential 1980s hit “Atomic Dog,” which had a memorable music video in the style of video games.)
The animation format allows Berger to address experience beyond other commercial cartoons — the race-baiting of the recent animated Spider-Man multiverse releases, the nursery-school diversity of Powerpuff Girls, and the Pixar toy commercials. Although Adam Sandler’s Leo is funny and undeniably clever, its Hollywood cuteness tortures the anthropomorphic concept. Berger’s European approach is affecting like My Life as a Zucchini. Dog’s railroad apartment highlights a poster of YoYo (1965) by eccentric French silent filmmaker Pierre Étaix, a little-known New Wave–master who highlighted the imaginative potential of animal and inanimate objects to vivify human nature.
It’s reassuring that Berger discards the falsehoods of his 2019 Blancanieves, a progressive’s diversity-burdened version of Snow White, recently co-opted by woke Disney. The basic contrasts of Robot Dreams — biomorph versus mechanical shapes — evoke the human/mecha binary of Spielberg/Kubrick’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Rather than action figures, Dog and Robot are figures of contemplation. Berger’s dream flashes present scenarios where hope and despair don’t merely amuse. Some of them are quite trenchant, recalling romantic high points from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, even The Way We Were. These cultural flashbacks counter the current rush to make AI take over our lives. Robot Dreams stands athwart the revolution and defends human dreams.