‘Robot Dreams’ Review: Androids Dream of Disco Beats In Pablo Berger’s Sweetly Sorrowful Buddy Movie
variety.comGuy Lodge Film Critic Android or artificial intelligence isn’t the enemy in “Robot Dreams,” Pablo Berger‘s gently whimsical fantasy of a loner finding manufactured friendship in a scuzzy vision of 1980s New York City.
Indeed, one takeaway from this portrait of a shabby-happy Big Apple populated solely with anthropomorphic animals and surprisingly sensitive automatons is that the world might be a better place without humans in it.
Like “Blancanieves,” his silent, flamenco-styled spin on Snow White, Berger’s fourth feature dispenses with dialogue in favor of cheerfully expressive, faux-naive visual storytelling.
In all other respects, however, “Robot Dreams” is a significant left turn for the Spanish writer-director, beginning with an entirely fresh medium for him: simple, sharp-lined 2D animation in the manner of a pastel-softened “BoJack Horseman.” Both the film’s aesthetic and its wordless approach, however, are rooted in American author and illustrator Sara Varon’s 2007 graphic novel of the same name.
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