Requiem for a Robot (2013) Online

A robot wakes up with the motherboard of all hangovers, surrounded by bottles, cans, and regret. Remote from everyone and with corrupted memory, the robot returns to his father to try to understand what happened and how they got to this point.

A short film based around a robot is nothing particularly new; if you watch a lot of shorts it is very common to see them with sci-fi aims and some form of robot at the centre since it allows the makers to show off their ability with special effects. However Requiem is a little different since the robot is far from technically impressive – unless it was entered into a pre-school competition, in which case it would certainly clean-up. Rob is constructed from cardboard, sellotape, glue and appears to be controlled in the time-honored fashion of putting a person inside and having them walk around. If that sounds like a complaint then I have come across wrong because actually the cardboard simplicity (and the audacity of doing it like this in a media filled with showoff effects) is a big part of Rob's charm within the film. We see the robot throwing up, partying way too hard and generally living like the main character in a drama, while also being a cheap cardboard robot.

The absurdity of this makes the film amusing, but also threw me off- guard a little, because it meant that the touching aspect of the film also then works. I will not pretend that the drama is perfect, or that it would stand up if you just put people in these roles, but the delivery of the melancholic tone, the music, and the way it is shot/delivered in the second half, all do produce a sense of something more than just a silly robot effect. It probably should not work as well as it does, but it is surprisingly touching and sweet by the end.

It is not a perfect film for sure, and in regard to everything it does, all of it could have been stronger or have had better roots, but it is hard to dislike a film that bases itself around something as basic and accessible as a cardboard robot costume, and then goes onto give us something as basic and accessible as regret, pain, and the longing to make former mistakes right again.