CONTEMPLATION: Pablo Berger's ROBOT DREAMS (adap & dir by Pablo Berger from a comic by Sara Varon, 102mns, Spain, 2023)

Pablo Berger's feature animated ROBOT DREAMS goes from simple to complex to unsettling to accepting. Like the stages of grief. It's a fascinating movie that doesn't fully come together and yet. . .it conveys that feeling of finding appreciation for a past relationship that you accept can never be again.

The story follows a lonely single Dog in an alternate reality 1980's New York who purchases a Robot as a companion. The two become fast friends only to have disaster strike when the Dog is unable to move the Robot after a beach day at Coney Island. Due to some obstacles that are a bit hard to fully accept, Dog has to leave Robot on the beach for about 8 months until the beach opens again. During that time, Robot dreams of being reunited while Dog bides his time trying to forge new relationships, all the while waiting to retrieve Robot June 1st.

What ultimately happens is the whole point of the movie and is best experienced rather than being spoiled here.

The movie has no dialogue (other than lyrics in classic pop songs we hear) and was made in Spain by a Spanish director. Nevertheless, it takes place in a fully realized, English speaking, vibrant 1980's New York complete with the World Trade Center in the background. 

Robot Dreams takes place in an anthropomorphized 1980’s New York that is so detail specific you almost feel you’re watching a New York indie shot from the period.

It's a movie full of talent and integrity. The animated images are cinematic and expressive. The tone sincere, melancholic, sometimes comedic, sometimes heartbreaking.

And it reveals itself to be much more complex than it at first appears. As Robot waits on the beach to be reunited with Dog, Robot has a series of dreams that clash with the reality of its situation. Dog, if a bit weak and ineffectual, is loyal and determined to reunite with Robot. Life is the thing that gets in the way.

There is one scene (which I won't spoil here) as we head into the final part of the movie that is so brutal and insightful, this writer wasn't ready for it. It has to do with the unintentional cruelty and brutality of the world which may be, ultimately, the most destructive of all forces. 

And yet, mercifully, the movie doesn't end here (though it could in the hands of a more pessimistic moviemaker). Berger and the story have a few more subway stops to go and it's a touching yet honest final few chapters.

Great attention is paid to the passage of time across one year in the movie. Even down to one of the early songs being Earth, Wind, and Fire’s September which gets reprised as we approach that month again at the end of the film.

There are elements of the movie (and possibly the source material) that don't quite add up. The fact that Dog buys and assembles Robot to be a companion prevents us from totally viewing the relationship as one of love found and love lost. Can a Robot programmed to love its "owner" really be said to be in a consensual relationship? And yet, even writing this, this writer realizes that may be another insightful irony at the heart of the movie.

For after all, we humans get dogs and cats to be our companions. And we feel true connection and love with them. And yet. . .did the Dog or Cat really choose to be with us? Or, for that matter, parents and children often love each other and yet did the children (to paraphrase rebel yells of the 1950's) ask to be born into the families they find themselves in?

These are thorny questions. . .and fascinating ones. 

The movie is a rich and rewarding and insightful look into emotion, connection, love, separation, and existence.

The deceptively gentle style and tone of the piece belie a deep ocean of melancholy, questioning, and acceptance beneath.

Craig Hammill is the founder.programmer of Secret Movie Club.