This is the story of Sheldon and Francesca. They are robots, who accidentally met and fell in love in a world where, it seems, that nobody appreciates their presence. Sheldon is stuck in his mundane job and she desperately wants the world to know of her existence through pasting “I’m here” papers in public places. His rigid shell implies that he is stuck in a boring life, a pattern, like a song on a loop. She’s filled with curls. By extension, she is obviously daring, adventurous, enjoys “life.” She looks almost like a crash test dummy, whether that has anything to do with the character’s ending, I wasn’t sure.
This story sets place where robots and humans are living equally. In the beginning, Sheldon saw a robot as a victim of a car accident on the bus, nobody cared about the robot as he struggles on the ground. Sheldon was the only person who noticed the robot. They made eye contact.
The scene is a strong foreshadow of what is about to unfold in this short film. Francesca died from a car accident, with her body chopped into halves. Sheldon strongly desires to “fix” him, but couldn’t as the bus continues on. Sheldon finally overcomes his inability to help when he met her.
I won’t go into details, but the story basically ended up as this:
And this:
Throughout the film, Sheldon attempts to connect with people around him. His neighbours, his work buddies… when he manages to connect with Francesca, he tries his best to save this relationship. When she is broken, he selflessly gives his body away. The director made it clear that every time Sheldon dismantles his arm, leg and finally his body, their relationship grew stronger. This film is inspired by the story The Giving Tree, but I feel that the self-sacrificing theme of The Happy Prince is also strongly portrayed. Maybe there are just too many stories of the same kind.
I didn’t like the story, really. Why does it have to be the man sacrificing himself? Why does the woman have to be so clumsy and that she literally depends on the man to survive? Why do women have to be portrayed as fragile beings? I’m guessing that if the protagonist wasn’t a male, the film wouldn’t be as marketable (something I learned in class. Apparently when you’re in film school and write a script that has no male protagonist, the teacher could give you an F). The one thing I actually enjoyed is the music. It’s very soothing despite of what is actually happening in the film – a person slowly killing himself for the sake of his girlfriend. Morbidly romantic, the film made an impression to me not because of its story, but because it gave people the idea that robots could experience the same things as we do. Not gone-out-of-hand-insane-killing-machines.
