It’s Cartoon Time at the Chiltern Film Society on Wednesday 16th October, with its third film of the season, Robot Dreams (2023). CFS members and Elgiva audiences will know that feel-good schmaltz just isn’t how they roll. Disney this ain’t.
In recent years, CFS has screened some thought-provoking animations, including Persepolis (2007) – a coming of age drama set against the Iranian revolution.
The Breadwinner (2017) – 11-year-old Parvana must find ways to provide for her family, under the scrutiny of fierce Taliban rule in Kabul.
The Red Turtle (2016) – a shipwrecked man’s attempts to escape from a deserted island are thwarted at every turn by a giant sea creature.
Flee (2021) – Amin Nawabi’s autobiographical account of bravely escaping persecution in his home in Afghanistan and building his life again in Denmark.
The Wind Rises (2013) – Studio Ghibli’s World War II drama, based on the life of fighter plane designer Jiro Horkiohshi.
The Only Living Bot In New York
For the CFS’s latest offering, the tone shifts slightly. Robot Dreams is a dreamlike and somewhat comedic love story, set in 1980s New York. Much of the action occurs near Central Park, where the sitcom Friends is set, the difference being that our protagonist doesn’t have any.
Dog Varon leads (ha!) a quiet, lonely life; his only excitement is wondering how long his tv dinner will take to cool down. One day he buys a male-order (yes, I know) robot, with the promise of companionship. The pair are instantly inseparable and have many adventures around NYC, until disaster strikes, with, it’s fair to say, emotionally frustrating results for everyone involved (including the audience).
AI Will Always Love You
Robot Dreams is based on a 2007 comic by Sara Varon, who was inspired after she lost her own canine companion. It is a Spanish / French production without any dialogue, but the characters and settings transport the audience back to a simpler, grubbier time in a parallel universe. The film includes lovely references to 1980s pop culture, including FIFA World Cup 1982 (we still have that mug!!!), and a very funny scene involving a Slush Puppie slurpee. The fashion particulars are lovingly detailed, along with key disco hits and views of the city’s skyline, including the Twin Towers. There is even a When Woody Met Sally scene, involving running through the city’s streets to profess something that just can’t wait, which had me jumping up and down in my seat because, yes, I got the reference(s).
Robot Dreams was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and has won several other major prizes. Although it is a cartoon, it isn’t for children and, despite its rudimentary appearance, the story will stay with the viewer long after the final credits roll.
Just as Jaws (1975), was never about a shark, spoiler alert, Robot Dreams is not actually a LGBTQIIA+ love story between a dog and a robot. It is more an exploration of what it means to search for unconditional love (which people usually seek from dogs, clever eh?), that finding compatibility requires compromises, and that even coveted, seemingly perfect relationships can be fleeting if they are not rescued when the chance arises (and much like Jaws, for goodness sake, stay out of the water).
Are We Human..
Riddle-me-this for a second: Why is it that when someone dresses up with a silver face, has arms sticking out forwards at ninety degrees and is wearing a box, covered in silver foil wrapped around their torso, they still always need to say, in stilted tones: ‘Hello. I..AM..A…ROB-OT’? Unless the costume is extremely poor, that should really be self-explanatory. But I digress. (Next issue: Seedless grapes – what’s that about? Am I right, guys?).
In last year’s blog, Bot Meets Girl, we covered romantic relationships between androids and people, in honour of the CFS screening of I’m Your Man (2021).
Automaton Station
Robots are primarily created as a substitute for something missing in people’s lives, whether it be a soulmate, a check-out assistant, joke writer or, in my case, inclination to do any housework. (Not that we have a droid cleaning device, it wouldn’t get very far, trying to navigate around the piles of mess on the floor…the Daleks from Dr Who seemingly taught us nothing… I know, I know, not technically robots, but the point still stands (alone, and stuck in the aforementioned heap of detritus…)) If you do need all these things simultaneously, it’s probably best to consult the characters from The Transformers: The Movie (1986) and Transformers One (2024), as they seem to have most outcomes covered.
Disney’s Big Hero 6 (2014) starts out as a jaunty tale of a young, tech-obsessed teen in San Fransokyo (eh?) before evolving into an exploration of love, revenge and creating your own urban family. (They said I would cry. I wasn’t going to cry. Who’s crying…? BA****DS!).
The Modern Drone-Age Family
Jetsons: The Movie (1990), depicts Hanna-Barbera’s late 21st century family as living life with all manner of android assistants to help with their daily tasks. Rosie the Robot, the maid and cleaner, comes complete with her own pinny and is a dab-hand at vacuuming whilst standing on one leg and wearing a roller skate. (‘Twas ever thus, am I right, ladies?) Another movie from a popular television series, Futurama: Bender’s Big Score (2007), sees the beer swigging, chain-smoking, wise-cracking antihero, Bender Bending Rodiguez, travelling back in history and cloning himself. Despite having conquered the space time continuum and explored infinite possibilities of existence, he still fails to achieve anything vaguely useful.
Trouble In Paradise
Which brings us seamlessly to Wall-E (2008). Even before our current Climate Crisis, Disney Pixar warned us that we should be looking after our planet better (although how many DVDs are now physically lying on the scrapheap, as everything turns digital, is anyone’s guess…).
Wall-E is a robot, stationed for infinite cleanup duty on an Earth that is so festooned with rubbish that all its now obese occupants have had to be evacuated onto giant spaceships. As the only android who is still functioning, Wall-E finds beauty in items others have thrown away and tries to establish connection with EVE, a visiting android who has been sent from a passing ship to scan Earth for sustainable life. Which is all really rather bleak, and dangerously on the nose, even if Wall-E himself is very cute.
By contrast, this month, The Wild Robot (2024) hits our cinema screens. This is the story of Roz (voiced by Lupita Nyong’o), a stranded android who has to learn how to survive in the wilderness and becomes a surrogate mother to a newly hatched gosling (not Ryan, he’s more of a goose now…). The Wild Robot is a DreamWorks production, based on a series of books by Peter Brown, and seems to be good half-term fodder for the more sensitive market. (Based on the trailer and the premise, I shall probably cry when I watch it….Oh look, I’m rusting again…)
Another innocent, learning about the ways of the world from scratch is The Iron Giant (1999). Brad Bird, who brought the world The Incredibles (2004) and Ratatouille (2007), made his directorial debut with an adaption of Ted Hughes’ 1968 novel, The Iron Man, a text that has bemused, bewildered and befuddled children studying the Key Stage 2 English curriculum for generations. In the story, a small boy, Hogarth, meets and befriends the metal titan who he finds in the woods, while simultaneously hiding him from the US Army, and trying to convince him that he does not have to become the war machine that he was designed to be.
So, that’s all folks, on the animated robot front. We hope you enjoy Robot Dreams and that it inspires you to treat your microwave with some newfound respect.
Ain’t Nothing Like a Dame
And finally, it was with great sadness that we said goodbye to screen icon Dame Maggie Smith, at the end of last month. Smith began acting in 1952 at the Oxford Playhouse and went on to have an illustrious career on both stage and screen, which spanned seven decades.
Dame Maggie won two Oscars, for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) and California Suite (1978), and received many other accolades. Other notable films she starred in include A Room with A View (1985), The Lady In The Van (2015), The Harry Potter Series (2001 – 2011) where she starred as Professor McGonagall, and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012).
Always immensely watchable, Smith elevated her scenes in Downton Abbey to iconic status with her withering looks and acerbic putdowns. She was rightly hailed as a national treasure and will be sorely missed.
To paraphrase my friend Joanne, RIP Dame Maggie Smith – you utter bloody legend.
Stay safe, be kind and see you at the movies.
Sarah
Information about the Chiltern Film Society can be found HERE
