This time yes. This time Pablo Berger (Bilbao, 1963) is in Hollywood involved in the competition for the animation Oscar with his Robot dreams, which has a Catalan production. He already considered attending the gala with Snow White, but did not make the final cut. On this occasion, talking at the Four Season, the star hotel, with the statue of Marilyn Monroe welcoming him, Berger exclaims: “I'm very excited!”
He has tough competition with Spider-Man...
I think there are always surprises at awards shows. I'm going with my team. There will be more than 30 people in the Dolby Theater. We will be viewing the Oscar. And we will be waiting for them to say: “...and the Oscar goes to Robot dreams”. I'm preparing my speech. And you have to always go out to win. Never go out to lose. I go with encouragement, with high spirits.
It is shocking that, over the age of 60 and after three live-action films, his childhood comes out with animation.
We directors have to maintain the child within us, right? And, without a doubt, one of the happiest moments of my life, when I was a child, was watching cartoon movies, because that's what we called them.
Is it a film for children?
We never made the film with children in mind. We think about the public from an adult point of view and treating the child as an adult.
When watching, the children laugh and the adults too, both of them get excited.
I like to think that there is an adult viewer who, when watching Robot Dreams, suddenly regresses to the child, but with an adult point of view. Let him be a child for an hour and a half. And with the child I want to do the opposite, I want to treat him like an adult and confront him with adult problems and treat him with respect. Sometimes in children's films children are belittled, thinking that they should be yelled at, that they should do stupid things and that obvious humor should be used.
How was the experience?
I think all my previous films prepared me to do this one. And I think I had an animation director inside me without being aware of it.
It seems like a process in reverse from what is usual.
We have to talk about movies, not live-action movies or animated movies. Here it is good to remember what Guillermo del Toro said when he collected the Oscar for Pinocchio. Animated cinema is not a genre. I am a film director and above all I am a storyteller. And that is what interests me most, telling stories, engaging the viewer, surprising them regardless of the medium.
What did you see in Sara Varon's graphic novel that inspired you?
The only reason I made this film was the story. I didn't think: I'm going to make an animated film, I'm going to look for a story. No. I found a story in which the protagonists are anthropomorphic and all the inhabitants of New York in an alternate reality are anthropomorphic, bipedal animals. So, either I made it into an animated film or I didn't make it. And the story touched me deeply. I made the film because I remembered a lot of people who are no longer with me and my dream was to make a film that viewers would make their own and remember loved ones who are no longer with them. It is possibly my most personal film.
The most personal despite being the first that is not based on its own story.
It's curious, but it's like that. Without a doubt, there is a part of me that is very present. I don't want to compare myself to the great master Steven Spielberg, but for example, Spielberg always says that his most personal film is E.T. We're talking about an alien movie. How is it possible? We directors look for ways to make the stories our own.
He got into the novel.
I identify with Dog. I've been that lonely dog. I lived in the East Village, I found my robot, I lost my robot, I made friends, I lost friends and I left New York and this city was also important to making the movie. Even so, I have maintained the spirit of the novel. Before becoming a director I wanted to be a jazz musician. I feel like I'm like a musician who takes a standard and the standard is Sara Varon's melody. There are passages where I improvise for several minutes and return to the standard. The melody is Sara Varon's and I do the version.
The dog, the robot and a love letter to New York.
One of the reasons that pushed me to make this film was to see that I could make New York the protagonist.
A portrait of that city in the eighties...
We work all the details to the maximum, every door, every air conditioner, every garbage can. I wanted the viewer to travel to a New York that has disappeared.
Even the animals represent New Yorkers.
New York cannot be understood without New Yorkers. What makes New York what it is are New Yorkers, the most diverse city.
And music...
If I have to talk about a genre, I would say that Robot dreams is a musical. In a film in which there is no dialogue, the music is the voice of the characters.
