The love, death and robots of Netflix: Review of Season 1

By Laura Prudom

This is a no-nonsense review of the new Netflix anthology, Love, Death & Robots, streamed on Netflix.

When Tim Miller and David Fincher decided to create Love, Death & Robots, he just wanted to create something "cool".

Mission accomplished. The new series of anthologies of Netflix, consisting of 18 animated shorts, lasting from 5 to 17 minutes, is the very embodiment of cool. an ambitious, dazzling, flawless dream that oscillates between genres and animation styles to offer an all-you-can-eat buffet of quirks, ranging from yogurt to ghost fish, to another story that cheerfully reinvents the many how Hitler would have could die. The closest analogues in the series are Heavy Metal, Liquid Television and Adult Swim, but Love, Death & Robots takes things to another level in terms of style, range and shock.

The shorts have no theme or unified message – some are dark and nihilistic, others poetic and hopeful, some other surrealistic or overtly comical – but no other short film stands looks, using animation teams and studios from around the world, including that of Hungary. Digic Pictures (who recently worked on the cinematics of the game in Destiny 2 and the trailer for Rainbow Six Siege by Ubisoft), Unit Image (France, God of War, Beyond Good and Evil 2), Platige Image in Poland (Metro Exodus, Dishonored: Death Of The Outsider), Korean House of Culture Reddog (Overwatch, Voltron: The Legendary Defender) and Los Angeles-based Blur Studio (Far Cry 5, The Shadow of the tomb), to name only a few.

Six of the short films use computer-generated imagery and the capture of very real movements, sometimes playing as game cinematics or movie trailers – but they are all aesthetically beautiful, even if they are do not manage to cross the strange valley.

Others use stylized CG, rotoscopy, 2D or mixed techniques. It is usually animated shorts that set the tone, perhaps because photographic CGI is becoming more and more ubiquitous, especially in games.

Miller and Fincher said that they let the stories dictate how each short film was animated. The CG short films are certainly the most ambitious in terms of scale, with "The Secret War", which staged the fierce fight of an army against grotesque monsters in the Siberian forest. and "Sonnie's Edge" featuring an elaborate gladiatorial fight. But there is something clinical about these pieces that can keep viewers at bay. The most effective photo-realistic short is "Helping Hand", a claustrophobic room that intelligently accentuates the tension to let you squirm on your seat without ever falling asleep. his welcome.

"The Witness", directed and performed by the artist Alberto Mielgo, is without a doubt the group's most striking and inventive group – with its nervous composition and loaded graphics game, it plays as if Into the Spider- Verse was responding to a music video of Marilyn Manson, although he is content with some questionable narrative knots to make sure that his female protagonist is basically naked during most of the action. (A useless editing, given the fascinating twists and turns of the story, but probably not untimely for many viewers.)

But calling Love, Death & Robots for free is a little redundant, because that seems to be the goal – Miller and Fincher were clearly eager to test the limits of support and create something that could never be found in a traditional multiplex or on a network. television, with buckets of blood, abundant nudity (man and woman) and elaborate violence. It's a story told until eleven o'clock, and it will soon become clear if a short film is your cup of tea – thankfully, you will only have to wait a few minutes to see something completely different if this is not the case. Is not the case.

But, just like Black Mirror, a viewer's garbage can potentially be a treasure for another, and the box of possibilities chocolates means that if one chooses to force-feed the entire selection for more than three hours (like the did your criticism), or only two or three shorts, it is unlikely that you will get bored and you will certainly come back with at least two stories that you will deeply adore.

If your tastes align with mine, the most intimate intrigues seem the most likely to stay with you (but if you like monsters and epic battle scenes, your interests will always be well represented). The artist "Zima Blue" is a surprisingly poignant ruminating on the meaning of life, presented with a beautiful block figure drawing, while "Fish Night", based on a short story by author Joe Lansdale , is an existential journey in the desert color and imagination. A trio of comic tales – the "Three Robots", "succinct" "When yogurt has taken over", and the "Alternate Stories", more and more ridiculous, all led by Victor Maldonado and Alfredo Torres in very different styles – are unequivocal, showing the flexibility of the format.

While Love, Death & Robots has a wide field of application – its only aspiration is to explore interesting stories from the fields of science fiction, fantasy, horror and comedy – it would be interesting to see what a more consistent and focused collection looks like as. There are recurring coincidental elements (cats, breasts and man-animal hybrids), but given the wide range of genres and styles presented by the anthology, the possibilities are endless. It would therefore be easy to imagine a season entirely geared towards the future. on one aspect of the project title (death and robots are both in abundance here, but love, not so much) or a particular genre. Yet it's a mix of fascinating stories and compelling visuals. This is a trip that should be worthwhile for any genre fan looking for a quick detour from reality.