Isle of Dogs

A small bronze stat­ue of an Aki­ta stands at one of the five entrances to Shibuya Sta­tion in Tokyo, serv­ing as a pop­u­lar meet­ing spot and point of inter­est for the thou­sands of vis­i­tors who pass through each week. This par­tic­u­lar Aki­ta, who is immor­talised in pre­cious met­al, has a name and a his­to­ry – Hachikō, the dog who patient­ly wait­ed nine years on this very spot for a mas­ter who would nev­er return. He may have passed away some 80 years ago, but the tale of the dog who wait­ed con­tin­ues to enchant and inspire folk the world over.

In his new film Isle of Dogs, it seems that Wes Ander­son has spun a sim­i­lar­ly wist­ful yarn about about the strange­ly tran­scen­dent pow­er of canine com­pan­ion­ship. Ander­son likes to frame his films as tall tales, plac­ing view­ers at a gen­tle remove from real­i­ty to a plane of exis­tence more fan­tas­tic and charmed than our own. His lat­est is no excep­tion, a fas­tid­i­ous visu­al bal­lad pref­aced by an exquis­ite­ly-detailed pro­logue that pro­vides some quick but nec­es­sary expo­si­tion, rem­i­nis­cent of the breath­tak­ing, ​‘meet the fam­i­ly’ open­ing to his 2001 com­mer­cial break­through, The Roy­al Tenen­baums.

The mythol­o­gy of Isle of Dogs informs of the cat-lov­ing (evil) Kobayashi dynasty and a mys­te­ri­ous out­break of ​‘snout fever’ which threat­ens the pop­u­la­tion (both canine and human) of retro-futur­ist urban pre­fec­ture, Megasa­ki. The solu­tion pre­sent­ed by no-non­sense May­or Kobayashi is to ban­ish every dog to a float­ing, off-shore garbage dump named Trash Island. This reac­tionary decree does not go down well with his young ward, Atari, who prompt­ly sets off to retrieve his pet dog Spots from exile – and in doing so, hap­pens upon a rag-tag pack of self-styled alpha dogs.

Many of Anderson’s famil­iar wreckin’ crew lend their dis­tinc­tive voic­es to these pups, includ­ing Edward Nor­ton (Rex), Jeff Gold­blum (Duke), Bill Mur­ray (Boss) and Bob Bal­a­ban (King). It’s fit­ting, then, that Bryan Cranston plays the out­sider among the out­siders, his grav­el­ly voice bring­ing a soft edge of men­ace to stray mutt Chief, who is quick to warn those he meets: ​“I bite”. The dul­cet tones of Court­ney B Vance lends a pleas­ant grav­i­tas to the film’s nar­ra­tion, but arguably the most fun comes with Til­da Swinton’s typ­i­cal­ly eccen­tric side-char­ac­ter. To describe her would be to spoil one of the film’s most charm­ing sur­pris­es, but her inclu­sion is indica­tive of the thought that has gone into every tiny ele­ment of the film. With Ander­son, noth­ing is left to chance – every breed comes with a back­sto­ry, just as every strand of fur is metic­u­lous­ly mat­ted to enhance the film’s exquis­ite­ly scuzzy aesthetic.

There’s so much plea­sure in the ambi­tious pro­duc­tion design too, from the exquis­ite pup­pets and sequences influ­enced by tra­di­tion­al shad­ow play to ani­ma­tion inspired by Japan­ese wood­blocks and Alexan­dre Desplat’s strik­ing, non-orches­tral score, which is ful­ly in tune with the film’s set­ting. In a bold con­trast from his pre­vi­ous work, Ander­son only places a sin­gle ​’60s pop song into the mix, The West Coast Pop Art Exper­i­men­tal Band’s ​‘I Won’t Hurt You’, whose som­bre strains add to the film’s melan­cholic undertow.

In its design, Megasa­ki itself inhab­its both past and future – it is an auda­cious study in Japan­ese futur­ism, and it’s easy to spot the influ­ence of Hayao Miyaza­ki and Aki­ra Kuro­sawa in the elab­o­rate graph­ic ani­ma­tion sequences and the use of a soul­ful gui­tar melody bor­rowed from the latter’s 1948 noir Drunk­en Angel. Rather than feel­ing deriv­a­tive, Isle of Dogs feels like an impas­sioned and sin­cere response to the work of these mas­ter film­mak­ers – what a treat it is to feel a director’s regard for his influ­encers so acute­ly, and to feel that Ander­son has worked hard to ensure the prod­uct he has cre­at­ed feels authen­tic and respectful.

This is most evi­dent in his deci­sion to have Japan­ese char­ac­ters speak in their native tongue, with swaths of dia­logue going untrans­lat­ed (as explained in a handy open­ing title-card). It’s a fas­ci­nat­ing choice that means the film will be viewed entire­ly dif­fer­ent­ly by Japan­ese speak­ers. Also, there’s being a play­ful sense of irony that comes from watch­ing a film where you com­pre­hend the dogs more than you do the human characters.

In con­trast with 2009’s Fan­tas­tic Mr Fox, which blurs the line between ani­mal and human, the dogs here are very much wild things, and the nar­ra­tive is told large­ly from their per­spec­tive. Beyond a vague famil­ial tra­di­tion, we nev­er learn what it is that moti­vates Kobayashi’s hatred of dogs – because it doesn’t mat­ter. After all, why should the rea­son­ing of humans mat­ter to dogs? Their chief con­cerns and moti­va­tions remain pleas­ant­ly ani­mal­is­tic – a warm bed, an atten­tive mas­ter and a plen­ti­ful sup­ply of food.

As he did with the young, run­away lovers at the cen­tre of 2012’s Moon­rise King­dom, Ander­son indulges the unique per­spec­tive of his pro­tag­o­nists. While it’s a risk to cen­tre a film so com­plete­ly on char­ac­ters who have such ani­mal motives, it’s thrilling to see Ander­son com­mit so com­plete­ly to the world he has cre­at­ed – he trusts his audi­ence, both young and old, to fol­low suit. It’s a decep­tive­ly sim­ple sto­ry – like a lov­ing­ly craft­ed and hand-paint­ed matryosh­ka doll, with each new lac­quered lay­er a delight to unpack and behold. The nar­ra­tive scam­pers play­ful­ly between Trash Island and Megasa­ki, like a dog attempt­ing to fol­low two dif­fer­ent scent trails, bound­ing with wide-eyed excite­ment when the paths final­ly converge.

This is also one of Anderson’s most sur­pris­ing­ly sedate films. It lacks the whirling hijinks of 2014’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, and is per­haps most rem­i­nis­cent of his ear­ly work in 1998’s Rush­more, down to its wry wit and a soul­ful­ness that sticks long after the end cred­its have rolled. Yet it pos­sess­es the heart of a mighty beast. This love sto­ry is about the purest rela­tion­ship that exists in the known world: that between a 12-year-old boy and his dog. In every one of his films, this sin­gu­lar direc­tor has demon­strat­ed a deep capac­i­ty for human empa­thy, and it’s this ele­ment that comes across with the most force in Isle of Dogs.

A sense of under­stand­ing and admi­ra­tion between human and canine that sinks into each immac­u­late frame. There’s some melan­choly, too. For the love of a dog – uncon­di­tion­al though it may be – is only a fleet­ing gift, and it’s this heart­break­ing detail which ele­vates the film beyond a sim­ple (and sim­plis­tic) ani­mal caper. It’s soul­ful, reflec­tive poet­ry that’s etched on cel­lu­loid, and plays div­i­dends by view­ing on the biggest screen pos­si­ble. It also invites (demands?) repeat view­ings, so that like a dog proud­ly dig­ging up the back­yard in search of a juicy bone, you too might uncov­er some­thing new each and every time.