In his native Spain, Pablo Berger is a celebrated filmmaker and the winner of many Goya Awards, the country’s Oscar equivalent.
But 35 years ago, he was just another awed newcomer to New York City — first as a tourist, then as an M.F.A. student at N.Y.U.
So when he picked up Sara Varon’s 2007 graphic novel “Robot Dreams,” about a dog who builds a robot friend, Berger embraced Varon’s dialogue-free imagery.
But for his screen adaptation (now in theaters), he added his own particulars: The hero mutt now lives in a 1980s-era East Village very much like the one of Berger’s own Manhattan memories —
— albeit with a roaming population of other anthropomorphized animals that includes aerobicized skunks and street-smart warthogs.
The result is a piquantly wordless reflection on love, loss and enduring connection.
Speaking via Zoom from his home in Madrid, Berger broke down an early scene in which Dog and Robot happily embark on their first outing together in the big city.
Robot and Dog
“This is the first time they go for a walk, and you can see how they look at each other,” Berger said.
“For me, what is important here is that just a few days earlier our main character was lonely, and now he has made a big connection.”
“This robot is not controlled by artificial intelligence. The way Dog makes him is with dented wheels and gears and bolts and springs, so I don’t want people to see it as a machine — I want them to see the ideal friend, the ideal life companion.”
The Tote Bag
“The bag of Dog, with the little anthropomorphic orange, Naranjito, that’s like the mascot of the 1982 World Cup.”
“This is what you would call an Easter egg for Spaniards, because it was so celebrated in Spain. And when I was in Italy promoting the film, they also cracked up at this close-up of the bag because they actually won that World Cup.”
The Storefronts
“It’s not exactly what Second Avenue looked like in the ’80s. It’s a film version, a styled version.”
“The colors, the secondhand bookstore …”
“… and of course, a Greek diner.”
“I love a lot of 3-D animation, but I think with the perfection of 3-D, sometimes the audience backs off a little bit. Old-style animation, 24 drawings per second, is such an amazing art form that we can still explore.”
“Making it like this, with ‘imperfections’ in it, I think really represents more humanity. And that is the only reason to make this film.”
The Truck
“I remember going to New York and seeing so many graffitis, everywhere people were tagging.”
“This box truck just passed by [in the shot], but you see that it is full of graffiti, and I always loved this idea. I thought it was a very New York thing, that the tags are not only on the walls.”
The Skunk
“The film is full of what we call micro gags. So we have this skunk, she’s looking for a roommate. It’s a little hard for a skunk to get a roommate.”
“And of course we are in the period of aerobics, Jane Fonda workouts. So she just came from an aerobics class.”
The Phone Booth
“I think it’s also interesting to see that nobody has a mobile phone …”
“... and that there still is a phone booth.”
“So if you were to do an autopsy, when does this film take place? New York hasn’t changed so much in some aspects, but definitely if you put phone booths and no people looking at their mobile phones, the audience knows that this could at least be ’80s or ’90s.”
The Beat of New York
“In the film, there’s a lot of music.”
“In this scene it was Latin music, but if we follow — because this image is part of a 10-second traveling — the next thing they’re going to find is a group of punk rockers that are listening to Reagan Youth, ‘I Hate Hate.’”
“And then they get on the subway and there’s bucket drumming, and later on, there’s hip-hop. New York is a noisy city, but not only of sirens and alarms and the fire department. For me, that was fun.”
