Isle of Dogs
This is a Wes Anderson movie.
Wes Anderson has his style—quirky, restrained, and odd. And Isle of Dogs is no different.
And that is a good thing.
The setting that shows the Anderson touch, the movie is set 20 years into a retro-future Japan. Televisions, are black and white and square, telephones are still connected by a spiraling wire, and computers use reel to reel tape. But not only that, dogs, all dogs have been banished to an island off the coast of Japan where they dump their trash.
And there are the rules, that are explained in title cards to the view at the start of the movie, that humans speak in their natural language. And they can be translated by translators, of which there are several, or by the narrator, or by an exchange student.
And the movie is shot in stop-motion animation. The fur on the dogs doesn’t stay still, characters can move in a jerky motion, all lending to an other world feel, yet it is a world we understand. And therein lies the Wes Anderson ability, this world is different, but we understand it.
Dogs who have been infested with dog flu, they lose weight, they sneeze all the time, they suffer from narcolepsy, or they can’t sleep at all, or they become uncharacteristically aggressive. So in order to save the country, six-term incumbent mayor Kobayashi deports all does to Trash Island. And to show leadership he sends his adopted son’s dog, Spots first to trash island.
Kobayashi adopted his nephew Atari as a ward of the state when Atari’s parents were killed. During this time Kobayashi gives Atari a dog named Spot to protect Atari, or in the words of Spot “I am your dog.”
Spot is the dog that Kobayashi sent to trash island first. Atari escapes in a self-made airplane to fly to trash island to find Spot. It’s here that Atari is rescued by the main dog pack.
But Spot is dropped into trash island in his kennel, and we last see Spot spending his first night on trash island locked in his cage. Raising the question, how is he going to get out of the kennel?
As time marches along more and more dogs are exiled to the island, and after six months Atari arrives in his self-made airplane to find Spots. He is rescue by a pack of roving dogs, Rex, King, Duke, Boss, and Chief. And they all agree to help the boy, Little Pilot as they refer to him, to find his lost dog.
As Atari goes searching for Spots with his new pack, back in Japan Professor Watanabe has found a cure for dog flu. But he is poisoned by Mayor Kobayashi in order to keep the dogs on Trash Island.
Exchange student Tracey Walker, suspects a conspiracy of some sort, after the death of Watanabe. And being the intrepid middle school reporter that she is, she eventually finds the evidence.
But that’s enough plot.
Isle of Dogs is about tone and atmosphere.
The dogs are voiced by Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, and Bob Balaban play the dogs in the pack. They are the core of the movies and they work wonderfully well together.
The movie is the journey of a boy searching for his dog. And the connection that goes with that relationship.
It is also about friendship and the need to be a part of a pack and not to be insistent on being alone.
Final Thoughts
If you enjoyed Wes Anderson’s other stop-motion movie The Fantastic Mr. Fox, or his other movies I would recommend checking this out at the theater now. If you don’t catch it them, I definitely recommend using a Netflix disc rental on this one.