When it comes to the films of Wes Anderson, your mileage will vary depending on your willingness to buy into his intricate dollhouse-style vision. Whether following young lovers running away together in Moonrise Kingdom, a dysfunctional family in The Royal Tenenbaums or a hotel concierge framed for murder in The Grand Budapest Hotel, there is always a level of meticulous design that can either enhance or distract from the proceedings. Of course, Anderson’s new film, Isle of Dogs, has more in common with the other stop motion animated concoction in his filmography, Fantastic Mr. Fox, which showcases his artistry on a more overt scale than any of his live actions. The question becomes whether Anderson’s idiosyncratic quirks help serve the story itself.
Isle of Dogs is a surprisingly complex story set in near-future Japan, in which Mayor Kobayashi (Kunichi Nomura) has banished dogs to the aptly named Trash Island after an outbreak of uncontainable canine flu. This includes Spots, the beloved dog of Kobayashi’s 12-year-old ward Atari (Koyu Rankin), who sneaks out and flies a plane to Trash Island to find his best friend. Along the way he meets five dogs of varying personality, voiced by Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Jeff Goldblum, Bob Balaban and Bill Murray, who help Atari locate Spots among the decaying ruins. Eventually we learn the extent of Mayor Kobayashi’s corruption, as seen through the eyes of foreign exchange student Tracy (Greta Gerwig), a pro-dog advocate enamored with Atari’s rebellion.
Anderson makes a number of deliberate choices with the film, starting with the decision to have the Japanese characters speak in their native language without providing English subtitles. While we do get an interpreter character voiced by Frances McDormand who helps translate key speeches from Mayor Kobayashi, the English-speaking audience is not permitted to understand most of the Japanese characters here, creating a distance from their emotional stakes. The characters we are meant to understand is the dogs, with whom it’s easy to get invested as they reveal their individual quirks, from Chief’s (Cranston) preference of scraps over puppy snacks or Duke’s (Goldblum) love of gossip. This choice also accurately portrays a dog trying to comprehend their owner, as we are right there with the dogs, looking up at their human confused with just a slight hint of knowing what they’re trying to communicate. The downside to this, is it can be difficult to invest in any of the humans in this movie, most notably our hero Atari. We do see a flashback highlighting his emotional attachment to Spots, but there are times throughout the movie where the desire to understand what he’s trying to communicate puts the audience at a distance from rooting for him.
There is also a pointed political satire at play, with Kobayashi’s desire to vilify and banish dogs mirroring some of our own politicians’ comments on immigrants. We have a real battle between pro-science, progressive young activists and a corrupt leader looking to govern by totalitarian rule and stoke fear through division. Few Anderson films have had such a pointed societal message, but it largely works here, as we see Kobayashi’s rulings being passively consumed by the general public but protested by a passionate group of young people who haven’t yet lost their idealism. The same goes for the dogs we follow for most of the film. While many are starved and exhausted from their hellish environment, they press onward with a sense of honor-bound hope.
One aspect of Isle of Dogs that has and may continue to plague the film, is its Japanese setting. There has been some question as to why Anderson chose to set the film in Japan, when it really could have been told anywhere. Anderson has been vague on exactly why, simply saying he was inspired by the work of legendary Japanese directors like Akira Kurosawa and Hayao Miyazaki. It isn’t the duty of a filmmaker to make their characters and setting completely representative of an entire group of people, and while Japanese culture does occasionally feel like window dressing (a haiku, sumo wrestlers, cherry blossoms), there is very little malicious intent about what Anderson is doing here. Intent doesn’t excuse what’s on the screen, though, and when you see an explosion on Trash Island made to look very similar to mushroom cloud, he treads into territory that distracts from the cutting yet adorable story he’s trying to tell. As a White American I have no right to claim any one thing in Isle of Dogs as offensive to the people of Japan, but seeing superficial flourishes like this throughout the film verge on the stereotypical and lazy. At the same time, the movie does feature subtle touches as highlighted in this New Yorker piece, like the use of Japanese actors speaking with realistic intonation for their respective characters or a fleeting shot of a graffiti message.
Those subtle touches are ultimately what allows Isle of Dogs to succeed as a film. Anderson is an absolute master of design, with his animation team creating striking dog puppets that move exactly as a dog would. The worlds he creates both in Japan and on Trash Island completely immerse the viewer, to the point that you can easily forget that every little piece of trash or tile on the walls of a restaurant was handmade and delicately placed. At 101 minutes it is one of the longest stop motion films in the history of the medium, and while the story can feel stretched thin at times, the level of commitment and craft on display in every single minute is unlike anything we’ve seen. Animation is generally marketed to children and families, but Isle of Dogs should not be mistaken for a kids movie. While the film does have cute talking animals and an adventurous quest, it is very much designed for an older audience who are tuned to Anderson’s eccentric, dry sense of humor. I don’t know that this will be the movie that changes any skeptic’s mind on Wes Anderson, but for those who can appreciate his indie-tinged artistry, this is one of the most spectacularly rendered, emotionally resonant films you’ll see in this first half of 2018.
★★★½
FOR YOUR AWARDS CONSIDERATION:
Best Animated Feature Film
Best Original Score
Best Production Design
Best Visual Effects