Film Review: Isle of Dogs

Imagine you’re a kid, doesn’t matter what age, just imagine you’re younger, it’s mid-August, and you’re back in school. You’re a little annoyed, but also a little excited. You’re in class. Lots of new faces, but also some old. The first thing the teacher decides to do is have everyone introduce themselves to the class, and talk very briefly about what they did during the summer. The teacher looks through the crowd for the first “volunteer”, but one precocious scamp is throwing his hands into the air begging to be called on. So, the teacher calls on him. He goes to the teacher, with a flash drive, and whispers into the teacher’s ear. The teacher is confused, but goes along with, and takes the flashdrive to his computer. The child approaches the front of the class as the teacher preps the projector.

The kid introduces himself as…um…let’s go with Shmes Shmanderson.

He turns off the light, projector is turned on. Shmes has begins his PowerPoint presentation on his trip to Japan. In it, he talks about all the sights, sounds, and experiences one would expect from someone visiting such a new place. He jumped with excitement as we move from one slide to the next, going from pictures of taiko drummers, to him watching sumo wrestlers, to him trying sushi for the first time, to family portraits with beautiful cherry blossom trees in the background. But the pictures weren’t enough, he brought something his parents got for him at a gift shop, a woodblock print that he proceeds to have his classmates pass around. He goes on about how much he learned, and how he feels connected to the culture. He proceeds to tell everyone about this really obscure director named Akira Kurosawa. And then he finishes it off with a haiku. Nobody really pays attention to it, though. They just wanted it to be over.

That’s sort of what it’s like watching the latest concoction from Wes Anderson, Isle of Dogs, his second venture into stop motion animation after Fantastic Mr. Fox, which was almost a decade ago. It’s almost surprising it took this long for him to come back because the form seems like such a perfect fit for his meticulous style, and dollhouse aesthetic given the sheer amount of control he is granted. And it really does suit him. The craftsmanship in Isle of Dogs is astounding, and often jaw dropping when you consider the work involved and the number of tiny details that any other filmmaker wouldn’t bother with. This alone keeps you engaged with the film because your eye begins exploring every new frame, looking into every nook and cranny to see what it can find.

It’s good that the filmmaking keeps you engaged because when it came to the story and characters, I found myself underwhelmed. The film makes a choice in having almost all the Japanese dialogue spoken without subtitles, as a way to bring us closer to the perspective of the dogs, who all speak English (translated from Bark, of course). The problem is that the dogs aren’t particularly interesting to begin with. The only one who seems to have a ounce of depth is Chief (Bryan Cranston), a stray who has his own anti-master code, and finds himself at home on Trash Island after all the dogs were banished there due to a mysterious dog flu. And during the moments where he feels conflicted when Atari Kobayashi (Koyu Rankin) crash lands in search of his dog are among the best in the film, and those are precisely when I found myself emotionally engaged to it. Every other character in the film only has enough personality that their voice over actor can squeeze in, and that’s about all there is to them. After a while, many of the supporting characters kind of blend together, and things just becomes rather dull with moments of mild amusement from the occasional gag or line. It makes me think that the lack of subtitles maybe wasn’t the smartest decision.

The film has been under scrutiny for a while due to its questionable portrayal of Japanese characters and culture, and those criticisms are absolutely valid. In fairness, Wes Anderson, like the kid I mentioned earlier, clearly means no harm and seems genuinely interested. However, the way it comes across onscreen can’t help but feel very “touristy.” It can’t just be set in Japan, it has to have as many Japanese things as they can fit into the runtime. There’s no real reason it’s even taking place in Japan over any other location, and I don’t have a problem with that, but I don’t appreciate the overcompensation, which feels very fetishistic after a while. I imagine how I would’ve felt if a story was giving this same treatment to India, where my family is from, and I would probably be very bothered by it (and honestly, this is kinda why The Darjeeling Limited is the one Wes Anderson film I haven’t seen yet). I mean, when you’re main kid character is named “Atari,” and the character played by Yoko Ono is named “Yoko Ono,” and the big revolution to defeat the bad guys is led by a white foreign exchange student, Tracy (Greta Gerwig), and the whole evil plan essentially boils down to (I’ll try to be as vague as possible to avoid spoilers) a majority – Japanese speaking – populace using propaganda to influence a policy that results in a – English speaking – group being taken from their homes and subjugated to imprisonment…well, it’s just kind of weird. Maybe not “bad,” per se, but definitely weird.

That title is still super clever, though. Isle of Dogs, I love dogs, A+ wordplay.