ISLE OF DOGS (2018) Review

ISLE OF DOGS (2018)

D: Wes Anderson

W: Wes Anderson. Story by Anderson, Roman Coppola, Kunichi Nomura, and Jason Schwartzman.

S: Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, Bob Balaban, Nomura, Ken Watanabe, Greta Gerwig, Frances McDormand, Fisher Stevens, Nijiro Murakami, Harvey Keitel, Koyu Rankin, Liev Schreiber, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton, Akira Ito, Akira Takayama, F. Murray Abraham, Yojiro Noda, Mari Natsuki, Yoko Ono, and Frank Wood. 

After taking the last few months off from watching newer releases (with Black Panther as an exception) I'm back to give my thoughts on Wes Anderson's second animated film Isle of Dogs.

Set in the not too distant future, in a dystopic Japan a young boy named Atari (voiced by Koyu Rankin) goes to an island designated for all dogs of Japan after a dog flu virus spread. He goes there to find his dog Spots (voiced by Liev Schreiber). During his journey, he's joined by former housepets Rex, King, Boss and Duke (voiced by Edward Norton, Bob Balaban, Bill Murray, and Jeff Goldblum, respectively) and stray dog Chief (voiced by Bryan Cranston).

What can be said about Anderson that hasn't already been said about him? I don't think there's much else. What is it about him that makes him so engaging? It's surprisingly hard to narrow that down as well. Hell, his 2014 film The Grand Budapest Hotel was one of my favorites of that year. It might even top the list. But when it's hard to say why. Never the less, I'm going to talk about this movie.

Right off the bat, I can tell you the movie is well told, well acted, and has some stunning production values but that's to be expected with his movies.

I do want to highlight the animation of this movie. Anderson and his team did a fantastic job at the stop-motion effects. Given how long it took them to do a few seconds of a scene it should really be commended that they took the time to add little details. When the five main dogs are introduced they do a close up on them, you can see some of their hair blowing in the wind. That's dedication. Minor spoiler here, but there's even a scene where they animate a kidney transplant. Yes, seriously. They could've easily had that part be implied off camera but no. They went ahead and animated it.

I also love how each dog has a unique design to them. Each dog is given certain details that can indicate what their previous lives were. Stuff like Boss wearing a baseball jersey and having a baseball-shaped dog tag who was a baseball team's mascot. Or King having kind of a mustache which may have helped him stand out when he was a spokesman for dog food. With Chief, there are some very subtle details that foreshadow who he is.

According to an article from Zack Sharf of Indiewire, Anderson said some inspirations for this movie included the works of Akira Kurosawa and Rankin Bass claymation specials. That has to be one of the most bizarre combinations ever. But he made it works.

Sadly, my knowledge of Kurosawa's work is very minimal compared to other critics. Though just from what I've seen of his work, this story is definitely more optimistic than some of his work. For example, Ran (1985) his adaptation of William Shakespeare's King Lear. I won't spoil it here but, man oh man, that movie is bleak!

Speaking of Ran, according to an analysis by Kyle Kallgren of the Youtube channel KyleKallgrenBHH, Kurosawa was also a painter and painted his storyboards. I wouldn't be surprised a part of that was also an influence on the film's style. By the way, if you're not already, you should totally subscribe to Kyle's channel.

If I were to guess though, one might say the character of Chief is akin to a character Toshiro Mifune might play. A bitter loner who lived most of his life in isolation but eventually grows attached to his mission. I could be wrong. I think the coming weeks will consist of me rewatching Kurosawa movies and watching the ones I haven't seen.

As hinted above, this movie is definitely more optimistic than some of Kurosawa's films. The optimism definitely comes from the Rankin Bass influence. I'm fairly certain the Rankin Bass property Anderson is most influenced by is Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) and Rudolph's Shiny New Year (1975).

With the original Rudolph the main cast ends up on the Island of Misfit toys where, of course, outcast toys live. That parallels Trash Island where the outcast dogs are sent. The New Year influence comes in with a hero coming to an island (er, islands) and look for a missing character and gets help from inhabitants.

Oh, and of course, the animation style.

Before I went into this movie I did have one initial worry. Since this is a movie about dogs, I thought to myself, "Oh no. There's gonna be a lot of dog deaths. Isn't there?" Without spoiling too much, don't worry, there's nothing that traumatic. But this movie does mess around with my emotions a bit too much.

Now, there is one thing that has been brought up that I do feel the need to, at least, acknowledge - cultural appropriation. I honestly don't feel like I'm not qualified enough to talk about it but I will say Anderson's references and use don't seem disrespectful. But again, I'm not sure whether or not I'm one to talk about it, there are probably others who can do a better analysis of this.

There's a lot more I could talk about but I'm going to cut it off here. I really liked this film and highly recommend it. If there are major complaints about this movie I can't think of them right now.

What are your thoughts on the movie?

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