Isle of Dogs **** ½ / *****
Directed by: Wes Anderson.
Written by: Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola and Kunichi Nomura and Jason Schwartzman.
Starring: Bryan Cranston (Chief), Koyu Rankin (Atari), Edward Norton (Rex), Bob Balaban (King), Bill Murray (Boss), Jeff Goldblum (Duke), Kunichi Nomura (Mayor Kobayashi), Akira Takayama (Major-Domo), Greta Gerwig (Tracy Walker), Frances McDormand (Interpreter Nelson), Akira Ito (Professor Watanabe), Scarlett Johansson (Nutmeg), Harvey Keitel (Gondo), F. Murray Abraham (Jupiter), Yoko Ono (Assistant-Scientist Yoko-ono), Tilda Swinton (The Oracle Dog), Ken Watanabe (Head Surgeon), Mari Natsuki (Auntie), Fisher Stevens (Scrap), Liev Schreiber (Spots), Courtney B. Vance (Narrator), Jake Ryan (Junior Interpreter Ernie), Kara Hayward (Peppermint).
Isle of Dogs is one of Wes Anderson’s strangest, funniest and most heartfelt films – which is odd, because it’s also one of his darkest. For the most part, Anderson’s films have been about the family unit – its dysfunctions, and how they shape and warp people as they grow up – perhaps sometimes arresting them in a juvenile state. He saw the larger outside world most clearly in his last masterpiece – The Grand Budapest Hotel – where one man (played brilliantly by Ralph Fiennes) tried to keep the ugliness of the world outside his beloved hotel away, until it ultimately overwhelms everything. To follow that up, he has made the stop motion Isle of Dogs – set in a darker, dystopian Japan of “20 Years in the Future”, but populated the film mostly with delightful dogs. The outside world has now become fully part of Anderson’s films – and they are richer for that. The story is about the city of Megasaki, run by the corrupt Mayor Kobayashi, who hates dogs with a passion, and has devised a way to get rid of them. The dog flu has reached epidemic proportions, and threatens to cross the species barrier. Despite warnings from the Science party, which thinks it can be cured, Kobayashi orders all dogs to be banished to Trash Island. It here, six months after the banishment has taken place, that most of Isle of Dogs takes place. Chief (Bryan Cranston) is a former stray, who looks at the banishment as confirmation of the distrust for humans he always had. “I bite” he warns early in the film – and he means it. He has taken up with a pack of former pets – Rex (Edward Norton), King (Bob Balaban), Boss (Bill Murray) and Duke (Jeff Goldblum) to fight for the scraps on the island. The mayor’s nephew, Atari, steals a small plane and flies to the island – where he crashes – in the hope of finding his beloved dog Spots. Chief doesn’t want to help the “The Little Pilot” as they call him – but he is outvoted – so the set off to the far reaches of the island to find Spots.
The stop motion animation on display in Isle of Dogs is among the best I have ever seen in a movie – even better than the terrific Fantastic Mr. Fox (2008) that Anderson previously made. The art direction here is more detailed, the characters even more expressive. Anderson and his animators don’t try to hide their own involvement in the animation process – it all feels handmade, but in the best way. There is not a moment of Isle of Dogs which doesn’t look terrific. This is true of pretty much every Anderson film – and at times (I’m thinking particularly of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou), that attention to details smothers the life out of the film – making it all an exercise in style and little else. But for the most part, the style helps Anderson – and helps the emotions of the film come through. That’s the case here. The film is essentially a story of free will and freedom – and whether we compromise that free will for security and kindness. Chief certainly thinks so at the beginning of the film – but by the end, he opinion has changed.
The film’s Japanese setting and style has been the subject of much debate and criticism since people starting seeing the film – and while I understand the arguments of those who see it as cultural appropriation – a white filmmaker from American dabbling in a culture he doesn’t understand or respect for his own purposes, I don’t really see it that way (I will admit that as a white man myself, I come at it from a point-of-view probably similar to Anderson’s). I loved the use of Japanese style in the film – the many callbacks to Akira Kurosawa throughout the film (I certainly saw parts of Seven Samurai throughout the film, but also films like High and Low or perhaps The Bad Sleep Well). Alexandre Desplat’s taiko drum heavy score is among his best work. The decision to not subtitle most of the Japanese dialogue – or have the human Japanese cast speak in English – is a good one. It adds a layer of misunderstanding between the dogs and the humans in the film (it would be strange if both spoke in English, but couldn’t understand each other) – but also respects the Japanese language – and the cast who speaks it. Most of the dialogue isn’t strictly necessary for narrative purposes – there is a translator on hand for the big speeches (the delightful Frances McDormand). Anderson fully embraces Japan and its culture here – not in a way that is complete, or an insider’s view, but something similar to what Ryan Coogler did with African culture in Black Panther.
In short, I think Isle of Dogs is another masterwork from Anderson – among the best things he has ever made. It is a delightful comedy, but with a darker edge to it, even as it ends in a good place. Anderson has become one of the most consistently great filmmakers work today – and Isle of Dogs is one of his best achievements.
