After three highly regarded live-action features, Pablo Berger makes his animation debut with a graphic-novel adaptation about a robot and a dog. Screen speaks to him about New York-set charmer Robot Dreams.
Numerous directors — Brad Bird, Marjane Satrapi and Travis Knight among them — have successfully transitioned into live action after starting out in animation. Yet directors who have made that move in reverse are conspicuously scarce in number, Robert Zemeckis, Richard Linklater and lately Wes Anderson forming part of a relatively small cohort of filmmakers to work consistently across both formats.
Having made his name and international reputation with his 2003 debut feature Torremolinos 73, 2012’s Blancanieves and 2017’s Abracadabra, Spain’s Pablo Berger had no desire to make an animated film. On rereading Sara Varon’s 2007 graphic novel Robot Dreams, however, he found himself unexpectedly moved to tears by its poignant and wordless tale of a lonely city-dwelling canine who buys an automaton for companionship, only to be forcibly separated when the robot is stranded on a beach its owner cannot access.
“I felt the same things I’d felt all the other times I had read it, but this time when I got to the end it moved me deeply,” he tells Screen International from his home town of Bilbao. “I had never cried reading a graphic novel before, so at that moment I thought I would love to make an animated film from Sara’s book.”
Meeting Varon in New York, Berger explained he wanted to make an “old-school, hand-drawn, 2D” version of her novel that faithfully retained its ‘ligne claire’ style of continuous clean lines, flat colours and limited shadows. He was surprised, he says, how quickly the author agreed to the proposal. “I think my passion and my previous work made her say yes right away,” he continues. “But the important thing was that she gave me carte blanche.”
One key creative decision on Berger’s part was to replace the undefined metropolitan backdrop from Varon’s original with a vividly authentic recreation of New York in its 1980s heyday. “I told Sara I was going to make the protagonist not only Robot and Dog but also New York City, the city that adopted me for over 10 years,” explains the director. “I lived one of the richest and happiest periods of my life in New York, so this film allowed me to write a love letter to it.”
The time Berger refers to came after making his 1988 short Mama, an eye-catching debut that enabled him to get a scholarship to do a masters in film at NYU. “Mama was so successful in Spain I was offered the chance to direct a feature,” he recalls. “But I didn’t feel I was ready, so I moved to New York instead. At that time in the ’80s and ’90s, it’s very clear to me that New York was the centre and the capital of the world. If you wanted to be an artist or a filmmaker and you were ambitious, New York was the place to be.”
It was during his time there that Berger met his longtime collaborator and partner Yuko Harami, an associate producer and music editor on all his subsequent features. “I also lived in the East Village, which is where the story of Robot Dreams takes place,” he adds. “And I will even tell you that the apartment where Dog lives has the same floorplan as my first apartment.”
Armed with a masters in directing and his graduation short Truth And Beauty, Berger thought it would be easy to get his debut feature into production. Yet it would take five years to secure financing for Torremolinos 73, a comedy about an encyclopaedia salesman and his wife who become adult film producers, and another nine to make Blancanieves, a retelling of Snow White set in a black-and-white world of 1920s bullfighters. “My first films were difficult to get off the ground but I don’t regret it,” he says now. “While I have only made four features in my career, I am satisfied I have been able to make them with complete control and freedom.”
Character nuance
Working with France’s Noodles Production and Les Films du Worso alongside Spain’s Arcadia Motion Pictures (a regular collaborator) and Lokiz Films, Berger wanted to make his experience of directing actors an asset when he came to make Robot Dreams — despite the fact his animated film does not feature dialogue. “I have worked with some of the best Spanish actors — Angela Molina, Maribel Verdu, Javier Camera — so I thought I would bring what they gave me into the animation,” explains Berger. “There are many animated films where characters act or overreact in a very exaggerated way, so I thought I would tone it down and get honest, truthful performances like you get in live action.”
With Harami’s help, Berger also put emphasis on the film’s music, through both period-specific needle drops like Earth, Wind & Fire’s 1978 hit ‘September’ and ‘(It’s A) Monsters’ Holiday’ by Buck Owens, and a commissioned score from regular collaborator Alfonso de Vilallonga. “In a film like this where there is no dialogue, the music is the voice of the characters and the best way to enhance emotion,” explains Berger. “So we wanted to put in diegetic music that represents the East Village neighbourhood and all its different people and races.”
Warmly received at Cannes last May where it was a late addition to the Special Screenings section, Robot Dreams went on to scoop best film in the Contrechamp section of Annecy International Animation Film Festival, and play at further festivals; it also won best animated feature at the European Film Awards in December. The UK and Irish release in March will be handled by Curzon, while Neon distributes in North America, having already completed an awards-qualifying release.
Looking ahead, Berger says he has “some projects” in mind for his follow-up feature but has yet to settle on one. Whatever he chooses, however, is sure to be another adventure into the unknown. “When I look back, I see I didn’t make any of my films with a plan,” he reflects. “Whatever I do next, it will be something unique and very different from anything I have done previously.”
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