The directing team of Alexis Decelle, Cyril Declercq, Vincent Defour, and Pierre Jury at Isart Digital really turn the whole lonely robot formula on its head. The five minute silent short entitled “L3.0” is filled with heavy implication and immense back story, based solely on what we see, and not what we’re told. L3.0 is a lonely robot that spends most of its days looking for other beings, and sending out paper airplanes in to Paris. When he finds a butterfly, he might have found a new friend.
“L3.0” doesn’t go exactly how you think it may. Truly, I was prepared for an indie version of “Wall-E,” but boy was I wrong. The special effects for the robotic character are fantastic, mixing in stop motion with a hint of CGI. The titular character is expressive despite its mechanical state, and the landscape of Paris is very much a hint at what has occurred before we met L3.0.
I like the silent whimsical nature of the film itself, as its one big set up for a beautiful but very eerie final sequence in which we’re witness to a film that is not at all what we perceive it to be. The delivery of the twist is perfect, with the right amount of focus on the suggested back story to make audiences feel as if they’ve been duped the entire time. “L3.0” is a very unique experiment, and one with a rich back story unfolded in only five minutes in to a memorable final shot.