Whatever happened to man’s best friend?
March 23, 2018 is National Puppy Day. It’s also the release date for Wes Anderson’s newest film Isle of Dogs. (It’s no accident that the title can be playfully pronounced as “I Love Dogs.”)
In a dystopian Japan, twenty years in the future, all the canine pets of Megasaki City have been rounded-up after an outbreak of Dog-Flu and exiled to a massive garbage dump called Trash Island. A twelve-year old boy named Atari journeys to the crumbling kingdom of garbage to search for his dog Spots. Along the way, he makes the acquaintance of a ragtag ensemble of mutts—and begins to uncover a massive political conspiracy that will shake the city to its core.
This latest trip to Wes World is a stop-motion love letter to Japanese Cinema. Throughout the 100 minute run time, you’ll find references to Japanese cinema. In a March interview with ARTE Cinema, Anderson revealed that the new film is less influenced by stop-motion movies than it is by Akira Kurosawa. Many had picked up the not-so-subtle references and were quick to point out the revered Japanese auteur’s influence in Isle of Dogs. Isle of Dogs’s release date not only coincides with National Puppy Day, but also what would be the 108th birthday of Kurosawa. NYC’s Metrograph will is honoring both filmmakers with Something About Stray Dogs: Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs and a Kurosawa Retrospective, which will include High and Low, The Bad Sleep Well, Drunken Angel, I Live in Fear, Stray Dog, and Ikiru.
“To people who love movies, Japan immediately conjures up the work of Akira Kurosawa: a cinematic sensei to generations of directors. If Isle of Dogs permits me an opportunity to present a few of the Master’s masterpieces in 35mm (which were on our minds and in our DVD players every day of the creating of this movie), I am grateful for it.” – Wes Anderson
The homage, however, is not without controversy. Several critics, most notably Justin Chang in his Los Angeles Times review, has called out Anderson for cultural stereotypes. Anderson had previously explained that the film could’ve been set anywhere but ultimately settled on Japan because he and his co-writers wanted to a make a movie set in one of their favorite cities. Anderson, whose interest in Japanese animation began before Fantastic Mr. Fox, continues to create films that are immediately identifiable as Andersonian. Animators like Tim Burton have long promoted the value of animation as a necessary tool because every single aspect of the final frame is in control of the animators – from cinematography, editing, set design and even the nuances of characters that result in the acting performances. The 240 sets and 1,000 puppets are painstakingly crafted and manipulated to reflect every decision of the filmmakers, right down to the stray hair shaking in the wind. If Isle of Dogs does nothing else, it shows that animation in the right hands can be beautiful and confidently places Wes Anderson as a master of his distinctive visual and narrative style.
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Isle of Dogs
Director Wes Anderson
Writer Wes Anderson
Stars Bryan Cranston, Koyu Rankin, Edward Norton, Bob Balaban, Bill Murray
Rating PG-13
Running Time 1h 14m
Genres Animation, Adventure, Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Sci-Fi