Robots of Brixton

I had recently been pretty taken by Tavares' film Jonah and read of this previous film. The general feeling about this seemed to be it was a great short with impressive animation used in support of an intelligent and political core; having seen it myself I'm afraid I have to be contrary to these. The animation for sure is impressive and I applaud the effort going into it even though it is clear that Tavares' vision exceeded his reach at this time, because that does show at times. The expansion of Brixton to be more of a broken and mechanical future is good and generally the animation of the robots is good although there is a certain clunkiness to some of the movement and some of the camera movements which put me in mine of those limited Saturday morning cartoons you see. Still, for a short film it works very well.

The thing that will make this more than a showcase though is the narrative – and I already saw that Tavares can do that as he did well in Jonah. Unfortunately in this case the message seems to be more tacked on rather than part of the delivery. The robotic riots are linked back to those in the early 80's in Brixton and the suggestion is that things will repeat forever if we do not actually address them – hence badly treated robots rising up in the way the Afro-Caribbean community did then. This is a very simple point and I didn't think the film did it well since it really just delivered some effects on the way to merging into a photograph from the era; to actually deliver it really needed to have more commentary and subtext throughout the short but it didn't and as a result felt fragmented.

It is a shame that ultimately Robots of Brixton is more about what Tavares could do rather than what he did. The impressive effects and the attempt to have a social commentary as part of the film grabbed people's attention but it is a shame that the film as a viewing experience is not all it could be. It was positive to see how much better Jonah was compared to this film as it shows him moving in a very positive direction.

It's only 5 minutes long but it says more than some films do in two hours.

The animation isn't the best nor the worst.

Interesting concept and relevant considering the riots earlier in the year. In Britain and the rest of the world. It might have fared better with less imagery and more content relevant to what existed of a story.

I gave it an 8. Watch it if you get the chance.

If you enjoyed this it's definitely worth checking out Animatrix there are a couple of chapters which have a similar plot but expand on it a lot more.

London sees a new workforce , One of mechanical robots and as it turns out even robots suffer from the failings of human nature where base tribalistic world views of " them and us " eventually leads to confrontation with authority in the shape of the police

At least I think that's what Kibwe Tavares short film might be saying but the message is somewhat confused . Obviously it has something to do with the 2011 English riots being related to the original 1981 race riots of Brixton along with a quote from Marx that is easily recognisable . But what is the message ? It's more confusing when both the police and the civil population are portrayed in robotic form . If you glance real footage of present day in the background you'll notice the multi ethnic profile of the real life people who live there so the robots aren't surrogates or metaphors for the police and neither are they of the black Caribbean community

This is a pity though one wouldn't have preferred overstatement either . The stars of the show are the robots themselves and are achieved via 3D animation . I'm reliably informed ( Hi Bob ) that this doesn't mean the film itself is presented in 3D just that real people were filmed then afterwards the models are overlayed on top the live action similar to the animation used in Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated version of THE LORD OF THE RINGS . The animation here is very impressive as is the design of the eponymous robots and you can believe these robots exist in the same dimension as the live action . Compare this the amateurish CGI that seems to be the norm for multi million dollar Hollywood movies . Just a pity the confused politics doesn't live up to the imagery

Familiar story, not bad animation. social references. and the word of Karl Marx. far to impress, it does a good job. because not the artistic virtues are the lead aspect but the message. clear, maybe too left oriented, but , in a society where the insecurity sources are so many, that is not a real bad aspect. so, a reasonable animation short film.

We have the robots, a force of skeleton like automatons, living on the streets, fighting battles. I don't recall the event referred to that is recreated here, but can certainly appreciate the gravity of the details we are presented with. Watch this for its historical and political reminder that what goes around comes around.