Outside of the lyrics of Earth, Wind & Fire’s earworm ‘September’, director Pablo Berger’s first animated film lets the cartooning do the talking. Berger had already made contemporary silent films with works like the 1920s-set Blancanieves, but this adaptation of Sara Varon’s comic is concerned with a more modern era, set in a 1980s New York City full of anthropomorphic animals. The movie focuses on one animal in particular: Dog, a lonely bachelor who breaks up the monotony of his life by building himself a companion—Robot.

Just as the New York of Robot Dreams is bifurcated between allegorical fantasy with its animals and realism in its depiction of city life, the story becomes split between Robot and Dog. Robot gets trapped on a beach, unable to move, while Dog struggles to get back to him. During the wait, Robot dreams about what might be going on with Dog, and what life might have in store for him.

Nominated not just at the Annies but also for Best Animated Feature at this year’s Academy Awards, Robot Dreams has already won over so many, even before a wide theatrical release. “Finally a film that exposes the New York Department of Parks and Recreation for the villains they are,” says Chris, while many other Letterboxd picked up on a comparison to another Oscar nominee in Past Lives: “Maybe the real in-yun was the robots we’ve made along the way,” Terence ponders.

That comparison speaks to Berger’s faith in the film’s all-ages audience—one that believes in the capability of children to handle heartbreak, though, as Jimmy theorizes, it might catch adults out, too: “A little bit shattered by this deceptively intelligent look at loneliness, urban isolation and the strain distance can have on friendship. A little girl down the row was sobbing and I wasn’t far off.”

My conversation with Berger, in London during last year’s BFI London Film Festival, covers the animation’s vast tapestry of influences, from its ligne claire origins to silent movies, Studio Ghibli and of course, New York itself—but it begins with me, and my Tintin T-shirt, which the filmmaker also brings into the fold.

How did you come to this particular comic, in Sara Varon’s original text?
There is no dialogue in the comic book. That was one of the things that attracted me in the first place. I have a big collection of graphic novels, and I had read back in 2010 that there was this comic book that had been extremely successful in the United States, and I fell in love with it. I then made Blancanieves, I made Abracadabra, and in 2018 I grabbed the book again. I went through the pages; I enjoyed it as much as the first time I read it. But this time, when I got to the end, I was moved to tears.

When I was reading, I was making the film in my own head. It had to be an animated film, which is something I never thought I was ever going to make. I have a career in live-action cinema, and suddenly I realized that if I want to tell this story, I had to make it this way. As for the setting, I lived in New York. I met my wife Yuko [Harami] in New York. Yuko is my closest collaborator on all my films, so it’s our love letter. We are the parents of Robot Dreams!

The physical expression of the characters drew me in, especially the dance sequence set to ‘September’. My partner, who skates, was pointing out things like, “They’re doing the Crazy Legs. They’re doing the Zero.”
Yeah! She got it.

Did you have any skaters on the team?
We had an amazing roller dancer and choreographer from Barcelona. She has the most amazing roller dance festival in Europe called Skate Love Barcelona, you have to come! We watched a lot of videos, and then we recorded two actual roller dancers doing the choreography and the moves of the film, so animators had these great references so they could do it as close as to how it really is.

That speaks to a sense of realism throughout the film, despite it being very cartoony—like the detail of the backgrounds, for example. What about New York did you want to capture through that imagery?
I lived in New York for ten years, so we really wanted to capture a New York that vanished: the city in the ’80s, when it felt like the center of the world, culturally and economically. There’s an element of nostalgia. I like the idea that the audience, when they get into the cinema, they travel in time. I want audiences who didn’t have the chance to visit New York in the ’80s, like I did, to experience how it felt.

Every detail was important for us. The building that Dog lives in, that was my building. Yuko worked very closely with our art director, José Luis Ágreda, one of my key collaborators. He and his team created thousands of New Yorkers who appear drawn as different animals. It's a jungle of New Yorkers. And then the buildings, the city, the streets, the subway—it’s like traveling to New York for the price of a film ticket.

Among those, I think I saw a bird or duck that looks like Mars Blackmon from She’s Gotta Have It.
The film is full of little Easter eggs. It’s like Where’s Wally? for a cinephile!

Could you tell me more about how you worked with your art director, José?
I did something that normally you never do. I worked with the art director in the storyboard process—not only as a consultant. He was a key member; he was the storyboard supervisor with me. I have the office where I work for all of my films, a little office in the center of Madrid. He sits next to me, and we draw little thumbnails. We talk about the shot, the angle, the shot size, foreground, background, what is happening. We have a storyboard artist next to us, and he elaborates on these little drawings, and makes a very basic animation. At the same time, we have an editor who helps to edit the scenes.

We then have our music editor, and we add the music. With a team of five people, this is how we worked for a year. Jose had to supervise all the character design. Even if there’s a team of ten people there, we’re adding every single animal you can think of, so we have to create thousands of designs. We had a team of over 30 people creating this amazing world. And here, while José was inspired by the graphic novel, he had his own vision.

The music is a key part of Robot Dreams—we already talked about ‘September’, but even just navigating the city, you’ll have snippets of people listening to different songs and the cliques surrounding them.
In a film like Robot Dreams, music is the voice of the characters. With Yuko and my music editor, we were looking for pop songs that represent New York. Of course, the first song we hear [‘A Bailar el Son’, performed by Venezuelan singer Canelita Medina] is a Cuban song. The second song we hear is by Reagan Youth, a punk band who sings an amazing song called ‘I Hate Hate’.

All this music appears through the street musicians, like the ones in Central Park. Earth, Wind & Fire’s ‘September’ is the main theme of the film, and Robot and Dog’s song. We also have The Feelies. They were this super cool band in the ’80s that appeared in many Jonathan Demme films. It’s a very eclectic soundtrack—we really wanted to represent this melting pot with the music.

For the original soundtrack, we collaborated with the same composer of my previous film, Alfonso de Vilallonga. He studied jazz at Berklee, and he made this amazing small ensemble with a quartet. We wanted to do cool jazz [for Robot Dreams]—one of my favorite animation series of all time is [Peanuts], and we all the amazing music by Vince Guaraldi. And jazz itself is a sound I associate with New York.

Were there any particular silent-era film artists in mind when you were making Robot Dreams?
My favorite period is the ’20s, without a doubt. It’s the golden era of silent cinema, where all the great directors explored cinema and took chances. They experiment with the length of shots, camera positions, and it’s only using images. So in Blancanieves, Victor Sjöström.

You mentioned The Red Turtle, a Studio Ghibli film. Did the studio’s other movies have any bearing on Robot Dreams?
When we talk about animation, we are always looking to Japan, Ghibli, Miyazaki and Takahata. I love all their films. I think ones like My Neighbor Totoro really talk to a wide audience. And then Porco Rosso was the first film I saw of Miyazaki’s, and he’s using an anthropomorphic animal there. Takahata, I think he’s a genius when dealing with emotion. Grave of the Fireflies, every time I see it, it breaks my heart. Oh, and My Neighbors the Yamadas! It’s so funny.

If we’re talking about Europe, I love Sylvain Chomet and The Illusionist. And in of recent cinema, I can think about I Lost My Body, or I think about Ernest & Celestine. There are so many great animation films out there, and I would like to make something like that.

Now you’ve had a taste of working in animation, is it a medium you’ll continue to tell stories in?
Definitely. I like to take chances every time I make a film. I enjoyed it so much, I made new collaborators and friends, and I had a great relationship with my art director, a great vision with the animation director. It was a very satisfying experience. Especially for one reason, because Robot Dreams is the film closest to the one that I dreamt of. When you make a live-action film—and this is not a negative comment—there are so many variables that could happen. Whether the cameraman suggests something, the actor suggests something, and you have to be open, of course, and you collaborate.

But in animation, the storyboards that I made across a whole year, with this small crew, are extremely close to the final film—of course, the animators improved them a lot for the final work. But for a control freak of a director, animation is a great way to make movies!