With a score of 9.1 on Douban, the most healing movie this year has appeared

New Weekly

2024-06-08 22:03Published on the official account of Guangdong New Weekly

Author | Mei Zhenli

Edit | Zhong Yi

  Title Picture | Robot Dream

(This article contains spoilers)

How many lines does a movie need to use to tell a story about farewell?

The Spanish animated film "Robot Dreams" gives a very different answer from the mainstream. It doesn't take a thousand words, not even a single line, but it tells a heavy story of love and farewell; is not as famous as Hayao Miyazaki and "Spider-Man", but it was still shortlisted for last year's Cannes Film Festival, and while receiving a high score of 9.1 on Douban, it also won the tears of countless audiences.

It tells us in a very tender and pure way: when love has happened and is gone, how should we say goodbye to the past?

 (Photo/"Dream of Robots")

How should people who are not perfect love?

The film is the animated debut of Spanish director Pablo Beagle. He is famous for films such as "Blissful Yellow Movie" and "Curse", but before "Robot Dreams", he had never made any animation. When he read Sarah Wallen's 2007 graphic novel Dream of a Robot, he decided to adapt the graphic novel into an animated film. "Never have I ever cried while reading a graphic novel. So at that moment, I thought, I must make Sarah's book an animated film. Pablo Beagle said.

Using abstract animation, stripped of all lines, Pablo Beagle has constructed an imaginary world of animal anthropomorphism with only images and music.

The protagonist of the animation is not a human, but a puppy and a robot, and does not distinguish between gender, race and other elements in traditional characters, so that the relationship discussed in "Dream of Robots" is not confined to one of love, family, and friendship, and the relationship between the characters has more room for interpretation.

The plot of "Robot Dream" is extremely simple and straightforward.

In the Manhattan neighborhood of New York in the 80s of the 20th century, the dog who lived alone looked at his lonely figure on the TV screen, and then looked at the residents next door. That's when a TV commercial about a robot popped up just in time.

 (Photo/"Dream of Robots")

"Do you feel lonely?" Faced with the advertisement's questioning, the puppy calls the order and begins its story with the robot.

Without the setting of "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" and the cruel competition of androids in "Black Mirror", the purpose of the robots in this animated movie is to accompany and love.

After having a companion, the music and tone of the anime instantly brightened. The puppy and the robot become inseparable best friends, and the two wander through the parks of New York, dance to the song September, watch passers-by play music, and snuggle up to each other and watch TV to sleep. And all this beauty came to an abrupt end with the arrival of summer.

 (Photo/"Dream of Robots")

When summer arrives, they head to the beach to play. As a result, perhaps because of the seawater or the power run out, the robot could not move on the beach. At this point, the puppy had to leave temporarily under the comfort of the robot. Later, due to the jurisdiction of the beach, the puppy could only come back to pick up the robot in June of the following year. Unfortunately, in the course of a year, the robot has been torn apart by various encounters and has disappeared.

Their lives began their first long parting.

Seeing this, there may be many viewers who will complain about the puppy: if it had noticed the warning sign "stay away from the sea" when it entered the beach, if it had understood the properties of the robot not being able to touch the sea water at the beginning, if it had gone out earlier the next morning, it would not have had to catch up with the traffic jam in New York City, and maybe it would have been able to bring the robot home smoothly, and the regret would not have happened.

 (Photo/"Dream of Robots")

But if you look closely, you will find that all the actions of the characters are traceable.

When the puppy took the robot out for the first time, passing by a neighborhood with poor security, the thugs raised their middle fingers at them, and the robot mistakenly thought it was a gesture of kindness and also raised its middle finger in response, and the puppy was afraid of getting into trouble, so he hurriedly pulled the robot to escape; Walking to the subway station, the robot imitated a passenger who evaded the fare and jumped at the turnstile, and the puppy glanced at the attendant, but still chose to pass normally from the turnstile; On the train, a diminutive animal pulls the robot's arm as a handrail, and the puppy pouts, but does not dare to say it.

 (Photo/"Dream of Robots")

It can be seen that the puppy's original personality is conformist, slightly timid and frizzy, which dooms it to be less perfect in its first relationship with the robot.

But it is these imperfect character settings that make people see their own shadows in them.

We've all been puppies, and we're all going to be raccoons

With the continuous analysis of this movie, some viewers have found another way to interpret it. The raccoon, which is concentrated in the second half of the film, is not the protagonist of the film, but represents an emotional stage worth discussing.

 (Photo/"Dream of Robots")

Compared to the puppy, the raccoon's actions are more mature and appropriate: after finding the broken robot, it reinvents the robot by modifying various machine components; It calmly handles when the robot accidentally causes a stove fire when cooking with the stove.

In contrast, the puppy's love for robots is particularly immature. But is it possible that raccoons have also missed their companions and then learned how to treat people with care?

Puppies and raccoons correspond to two different stages of the emotional state. The former is young and immature, and often has negligence in behavior; The latter is mature and considerate, and is always determined to help the other party. But there is no difference between the two, some are just the time difference.

(Photo/"Dream of Robots")

The puppy may be clumsy with robots, but it can't deny the existence of love. The puppy, who didn't even dare to evade the ticket, tried to break into the beach many times, reminded himself that June went to pick up the robot's post-it notes, and the hesitation when he saw a similar robot was a sign of concern.

And farewell is a theme as important as love.

During the year of being stranded on the beach, the robot had many fantastic dreams. At the end, the robot that has been with the raccoon stumbles upon his former playmate Puppy and a new robot on the top floor. It immediately rushed downstairs, crossed the street and ran to the puppy, hugging his former best friend.

(Photo/"Dream of Robots")

If the plot ends at this point, then the film is bound to reap a typical happy ending. However, just like parting in reality, everything is difficult to go as one wishes - the raccoon stands behind the robot with the freshly made sandwich and pats it on the shoulder with a smile, and the ketchup in the robot's hand falls to the ground - its last dream wakes up.

The robot looks at the photo of himself and the raccoon on the wall, imagines the loss that their new companions might face if they get together, and resolves to give up the chance to reunite.

(Photo/"Dream of Robots")

When waking up, this animation may deliberately want the audience to realize that the perfect ending of those old reunions does not happen in fictional animation, and it is even more difficult to achieve in reality.

Director Berger admitted in an interview with the media that when he created the characters, he thought of the people who had appeared in his life but were no longer around. The slightly cruel and regrettable ending in an intimate relationship is precisely the finishing touch of this movie, and it is also the only way to go in everyone's life.

The philosopher Badiou once likened love to a long, scattered, confusing, and foggy process, even "repeated declarations and vows." No one is born with the idea of how to love, and can only find the way to love through constant groping and hurting.

Even if they have left, the next journey begins, and the imprint of the past is still alive on both sides.

(Photo/"Dream of Robots")

When walking with the puppy, the robot saw the elementary school students holding hands, vaguely felt the correlation between "holding hands" and "love", and held the puppy's hand, but the other party was hurt because of the excessive force; Time has passed, and when the people around them have become raccoons, the robot has learned to master the strength and hold the raccoon with a strength that does not hurt the other party.

And the puppy didn't know how to love people. But when it takes a new robot to the same beach, it carefully and carefully keeps the robot away from the sea and replenishes it with plenty of lube in advance to prevent similar accidents from happening again.

At the end of the movie, with the sound of September, where the two used to dance together, a gentle goodbye is taking place, except that both of them give up meeting each other and instead dance with their current companions. The deliberate regret has become the most subtle feature of this film: the memories of the past are faint and faint, which just reminds people to cherish their present life more.

(Photo/"Dream of Robots")

Proofreading: Meet

Operations: Ono

Typography: Sweet

[1] "Robot Dreams": To the beauty we have inadvertently lost. The Paper.

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