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Wes Anderson's Idiosyncratic Dog Adventure


Wes Anderson is one of the few filmmakers who can successfully transition between live-action and animation. He established himself as a capable stop-motion director with The Fantastic Mr. Fox in 2009, and now Isle of Dogs is his follow-up in the medium; a movie just as intrinsically stylized, outlandish, strange and funny as he’s built his reputation on.
Set in near-future Japan, an outbreak of a contagious dog flu has resulted in one particularly harsh Mayor Kobayashi (Kunichi Nomura) banishing all dogs to Trash Island off the coast. On the island, a former stray Chief (Bryan Cranston) leads a pack of alpha dogs (Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, and Bob Balaban). When the Mayor’s nephew Atari (Koyu Rankin) crash lands on the island on a quest to find his dog Spots (Liev Schreiber), it results in the pack accompanying him on a journey to liberate the island and put an end to the dogs’ segregation.
Even in animation, Anderson makes sure to maintain his signature visual and dialogue style. Characters are often framed in the centre of the image looking directly at the camera, and their interactions are imbued with a lot of deadpan remarks. Anyone who’s seen an Anderson film knows these techniques well, but he incorporates them into a unique enough backdrop here that they don’t become tired. In fact, with animation he can be a lot more creative in how he incorporates his style; such as being able to quickly pan an aerial shot of a cartoon fight cloud to another cartoon fight cloud and back again, or illustrating the separation between life and media by portraying all in-movie video footage as 2D-animated. I also have to compliment Alexandre Desplat’s score, which has a naturally enticing beat of a motif, made more so by the use of figures actually playing it on taiko drums in the opening and closing credits (I’m also pretty sure I noticed a cue from Seven Samurai). The story, which exists in a surreal and simplified world all its own, is heavily influenced by Rankin/Bass specials, only with a grimmer edge and actual humour. It’s a basic quest, during the course of which a very typical bonding has to occur between the boy and the dog who doesn’t like people. However the direction of that plot, as well as the way it’s presented, is thoroughly engaging. There’s also just an entrancing way the stop-motion flows, the designs ideally compliment the whimsically bizarre tone. There are even a couple grisly elements of black comedy. The subplots that the movie follows in the city of Megasaki are the weaker element story-wise, particularly the one involving an American exchange student (Greta Gerwig) attempting to expose the Mayor’s true motives and organize a revolution. Though a deft satire on the type of millennial activist with a hero complex, it’s a thread focussed on conspiracy that’s frankly uninteresting. The audience already knows Kobayashi’s a villain with an early established bias towards dogs. The only notable contribution she makes could easily be assigned to another character. Adding her and her storyline doesn’t amount to much, except as an excuse to get Gerwig in the movie -a great objective, but not carried out well.
Like most Anderson movies, Isle of Dogs is an ensemble film, full of the directors’ regulars and new collaborators alike. Courtney B. Vance makes for a terrific narrator, delivering exposition with a perfect pace and authority. Cranston is fitting in the lead role, and his four foils each do a good job, especially Goldblum. The great F. Murray Abraham and Tilda Swinton make appearances, Frances McDormand fresh off her Oscar win voices an interpreter; Scarlett Johansson, Harvey Keitel, and even Yoko Ono have cameos, the latter playing a character of the exact same name. The Japanese cast, including Ken Watanabe and Akira Takayama are mostly good, but the absence of subtitles makes it difficult to assess whether their vocal performances match what they’re communicating. Anderson writes it so that everything they say can at least be inferred by context, but I can’t help but feel it allows something vital to be lost in translation.
Speaking of which… Isle of Dogs actually does remind me of that film, and not just because Murray and Johansson are both in it. Though set in Japan, there’s no mistaking this movie is American. Most of the best-known Japanese cultural staples appear in the film, many without much purpose. What it is is a tourists’ interpretation of Japan, from sushi to sumo wrestling. Even the names are somewhat stereotypical. This worked for Lost in Translation because its’ lead characters were cultural outsiders. But in this movie they aren’t. Anderson clearly wants to pay tribute to Japanese culture, but lacks a sufficient understanding of its nuances to do so. Coco, this movie is not.
Nevertheless, poorer side-stories and cultural blind spots don’t prevent Isle of Dogs from being a delightfully strange, cleverly funny, and oddly mesmerizing fable. A perfectly nice and creative movie that certainly loves our canine companions, it’s a kind of movie madness we need every so often. And if that doesn’t sell you, perhaps the prospect of cute stop-motion puppies will.
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