Dog Days Are Over

Movies: Isle of Dogs

We really don't deserve Wes Anderson, do we? And I don't mean Wes Anderson, the man, I mean Wes Anderson, the idea. The concept. The worlds Anderson creates are too gentle, too pure, too color-saturated, too good for this world. And yet, there they are on the silver screen--a gift during troubled times.

With Wes Anderson, you either love his movies or you think they are ridiculous. You either think his sense of humor is hilarious or you say "what sense of humor? his movies suck." And you know what? Both opinions are equally valid. Anderson's movies are precious, twee, whimsical, perhaps a shade too white (more on this below), a bit repetitive.

But they're also SO FUCKING BEAUTIFUL. It's very clear that each one of his films--especially this latest one--is crafted with care. The man figured out his aesthetic and stuck with it, and yet each of his films is like a revelation.

Just try to watch Isle of Dogs--a stop-motion animated film about a 12 year old boy trying to find his lost dog--with completely dry eyes. Won't happen. If you don't tear up, you're legally dead. Especially in this political atmosphere, a story of the pure-hearted love between a boy and his dog feels like a goddamn balm in Gilead. It adds a measure of grace to this world.

Isle of Dogs takes place in Japan, 20 years in the future. The dog population is out of control and a disease called "dog flu" is rampant. Amidst fears that it will soon infect the human population, Mayor Kobayashi banishes all dogs to Trash Island, a literal garbage heap. Soon, pampered lap dogs and award-winning show dogs are living beside aggressive strays and all of them are fighting for rotten scraps.


The Mayor's nephew/ward, Atari, steals a plane and crash-lands on the island. He's looking for his dog, Spots. A group of dogs--Rex (Ed Norton), Boss (Bill Murray), Duke (Jeff Goldblum), and King (Bob Balaban)--agree to help the boy find Spots. The only hold-out is Chief (Bryan Cranston) who identifies strongly as an independent stray who doesn't believe in masters (or fetching, or sitting on command). But he begrudgingly helps out at the urging of an attractive show dog, Nutmeg (Scarlet Johansson).

Meanwhile, foreign exchange student Tracy Walker (Greta Gerwig) is busy uncovering a conspiracy in the government that relates to the outbreak of dog flu and repression of a possible cure. Yes, there is an entire b-plot about dog-related government conspiracies. And it somehow works.

So you'll notice that in a film that takes place in Japan, a lot of the voice actors are white. The exceptions (as far as the main characters go) are Atari (voiced by Koyu Rankin), Mayor Kobayashi (Kunichi Nomura), and Professor Watanabe (Akiro Ito). These characters speak in Japanese and are occasionally translated into English but mostly not. The film explains that the dog barks are all translated into English (lol).

There's also some scenes of things like sumo wrestling and sushi-making that I suppose one could argue fetishize Japanese culture a bit (although the sushi-making is the perfect activity to Anderson-ize with its precise movements and attention to detail). I didn't really have a problem with this, since I think Anderson wanted to honor Japanese culture more than appropriate it for his own uses. But yeah, he really could have stood to have a few more Japanese voices mixed in among the American ones.

Anderson typically has one or two actors of color in his films (Sara Tanaka as Margaret Yang in Rushmore, Danny Glover as Henry Sherman in The Royal Tenenbaums, etc), but his films are very, very white both in terms of actors and in terms of just...essence. I personally did not feel uncomfortable with Isle of Dogs and the fact that it takes place in Japan, but I'm white so my feelers might be less attuned. At the very least, he didn't cast Chinese or Korean people to voice Japanese characters--something white directors have done a lot (I'm looking at you, Memoirs of a Geisha!). It's definitely something to consider, but I wouldn't let it stop you from checking out this film.

Overall: Wes Anderson gonna Wes Anderson. He's going to have all his shots perfectly centered. He's going to have a classic rock tune or two in show up in the soundtrack (in this case, it's the pretty obscure "I Won't Hurt You" by The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band). He's going to incorporate deadpan wit. He's going to cast Bill Murray. These are all things to expect and relish in because, if nothing else, Wes Anderson is reliable. And luckily for us, he's reliably great at what he does.

Grade: A