Robots of Brixton

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