How do you encapsulate loneliness, friendship, happiness, desperation, and grief all into one story with no dialogue and yet speak volumes? Robot Dreams, released earlier this year but did the festival circuit in 2023, is an understated, beautifully created film that barely scratched the surface of the box office.
Released by Curzon in the UK, it might have appeared that Robot Dreams was an arthouse film, an animation not particularly aimed at children and more for adults who know all too well what the Dog and Robot are each going through, to a point.
Having no dialogue make seem like its cutting itself off but with no speech to change the tone of the story, the characters that inhabit this world (animals, some anthrophonic) are free to just be. Retaining some typical characteristics, such as Dog’s happy wagging tail, actually makes these characters more relatable, aligning with the animals with what we already recognise. This aspect could also be appealing to children in the audience. But overall, the absence of dialogue gives more space to take in everything. This beautifully animated and on the whole joyful style of the film is pleasing to the eye. The story is told through actions but it is the expressions that really hit home. This is the part for the adults watching to appreciate. Animation has for too long been associated with a younger audience, but its films like Robot Dreams, showing there is a careful balance so anyone can enjoy the story.
Robot Dreams certainly is a gem hidden among all the bigger animation studios and probably even overlooked in favour of the ‘bigger’ films, but its one that stands on for its style, story and unconventional approach to those more complex situations we can find ourselves in.