I don't know what the production history of this movie is, but at the end of the credits, it displays the logo of Tel Aviv University and credits a fund that supports student film projects. So I guess that either it's a student film, or it's a student film that's had an upgrade. No one would mistake it for a production with the average commercial budget (even by Israeli standards). But it's a sci-fi comedy, and so self-awareness goes with the territory and there's nothing disastrous about the low-budget look. In fact, working with what he had, the art director even achieved an award nomination from the Israel Film Academy. And the artificial quality of the movie is also in keeping with its nature as a fable. It's all about the balance between assertiveness and sensitivity, which is an important issue in Israel where for fifty years the society has snidely referred to itself as having an army that's "yorim uvochim" ("bombing and blubbering," is it were). We're presented with robots that have feelings and with humans who don't. The metaphysical question that we can't avoid considering, the question of whether a robot can have feelings or can only go through the motions of having feelings, is touched on but not explored. A couple of well-known actors are featured-- Tzahi Grad in a typical role as a gruff authority figure, and Dror Keren in an extremely atypical role as a Russian immigrant. There are two pretty actresses in major roles who I wasn't always able to tell apart. And the lead actor, as the sensitive robot, was more convincing than you might expect, considering the difficulty of acting both robotic and soft-hearted at the same time.
Review of Robot Awakening
