Isle of Dogs

This week, a movie you might have missed. Wes Anderson is one of those filmmakers whose work you recognize no matter what the genre. If Anderson made a period melodrama set in a 17^th century monastery in Timbuktu, after two minutes you would probably say, “This reminds me a lot of Fantastic Mr. Fox.” Anderson is an auteur who works with largely the same cast and crew every time and has a very distinct set of stylistic and thematic concerns that turn up time and time again. If you like his work, you’re always going to be satisfied to one degree or another by his films. If you don’t, you will never be happy – because his movies are so consistently his. There is always a precocious loner; a distant, unavailable love interest; a complicated father figure; vintage audio recording equipment; British invasion-era music; and perfectly placed slow motion

So it’s no surprise now that Anderson has directed the closest thing he will make to a science fiction movie, 2018’s stop-motion animated fable, Isle of Dogs, that it is still completely and unmistakably his work.

Set in Japan twenty years in the future, Isle of Dogs begins in the fictional city of Megasaki where a strain of dog flu sweeps through the canine population. The city’s crooked mayor Kobayashi whose family harbors an ancient grudge against all dogs decides to ban the animals to a place called Trash Island, starting with Spots, his nephew’s dog.

 Six months after the dogs have all been rounded up, the mayor’s nephew, Atari, hijacks a small plane and flies out to the island to find his dog. He’s adopted by a pack of roving scavengers voiced by Brian Cranston, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, and Jeff Goldblum. Together, they help him navigate the dangerous, abandoned landscape of the island as they travel to the farthest reaches where they think Spots still might be alive.

Meanwhile, back on the mainland, a scientist works feverishly on finding a cure for dog flu before an extermination order is handed down, and a group of students at a high school newspaper works to expose Kobayashi’s corruption.

Even though it’s animated and features cute talking animals, Isle of Dogs isn’t exactly a kids’ movie. There’s a fairly graphic kidney transplant operation, talk of dogs mating, and other things that might be difficult to explain to your five year old, so do your research before sitting your kid in front of it.

The animation is simply one more way for Anderson to control every single element of what you see on the screen. Each character’s exact appearance, the color schemes, and the design of everything from Atari’s airplane to Kobayashi’s campaign posters has been art directed within an inch of their lives. Anderson makes films about insular worlds – islands, private schools, exclusive hotels, passenger trains, submarines – and stop motion animation allows him to shape each aspect. 

 The voice work by well-known American actors has an intimate quality, as though they are whispering their lines to you inside your backyard treehouse. Listening to Brian Cranston’s voice flirt with Scarlett Johanson’s voice, for instance, is a rare pleasure. All of the Japanese characters speak their native language with no subtitles, and the film uses the idea of translation throughout for both comedic and dramatic effect while also allowing Anderson to show more of his beloved vintage recording and listening equipment. 

Anderson’s films alternate between sweet sentimentality and a polite but very tangible bitterness. The wistful but ultimately hopeful Rushmore was followed-up by the itchy, uncomfortable Life Aquatic with Steve Ziszou. Right after the completely charming Moonrise Kingdom came the beautiful but surprisingly sour Grand Budapest Hotel. With Isle of Dogs, Anderson has swung back to a hopeful positivity. It is a film about a boy and his dogs, after all.

Isle of Dogs came and went from theaters quickly, but it’s available for home viewing now, and I highly recommend it.