Review: Isle Of Dogs

Isle of Dogs
Cert: PG / 101 mins / Dir. Wes Anderson / Trai032ler



The end of March sees me happy to have my doubt quashed, once again*¹. It was all the way back in the emotional vacuum of January that I sat, stone-faced, through the trailer for Isle of Dogs, wondering why I wasn't sharing the excitement of everybody else. Obviously, my reaction wasn't at the same level of distaste I reserve for the likes of F*fty Sh*des, so when the opportunity arose for a preview screening of Wes Anderson's animated latest, the least I could do was give it a go.

And y'know what? They're right.
Isle Of Dogs is the most meticulously beautiful film you'll see this year.

Following a young boy in Japan who goes to rescue his guardian best friend Spots from a quarantined island, this is a near-future, metaphorical folk-tale presented as stop-motion puppetry, and voiced by more seasoned performers than you can throw an Equity-card at*².

Although the film is dialogue-heavy in its execution, the occasional stretch in untranslated (and unsubtitled) Japanese means that this is primarily visual storytelling all round. Even in its heavily stylised form, the narrative is never unclear to the audience*³, and it's the visual element where the director's strength lies. Animated with such passion, precision and the unerring cinematography of Tristan Oliver, Isle of Dogs is almost hypnotic to watch. The formal structured storytelling, complete with chapter-cards, intercutting prop-labels, and a terse, sporadic narration makes this feel like Kill Bill-era Tarantino, particularly with its Japanese ties.

Although for all this, I feel the same (presumably deliberate) emotional disconnect that I did with The Grand Budapest Hotel, where Anderson seems to make the telling of the story more important than the story itself. And as great as the actors and expressive as the modelling are, I still think that the voice-cast don't feel like the dogs they're portraying*⁴.

What shines through most of all though, is that Wes Anderson makes animated movies in the same way he approaches live-action - with absolute, unremitting theatricality...

Paranorman, Inglourious Basterds.
No, seriously.



It is.



For the committed cinephile, this will be a buy-er.



Best, no - highlight, yes.



Unlikely, unless you really detest it.



There isn't.



Level 2: This film has the voice of F. Murray Abraham in it, and he was in that Inside Llewyn Davis along with Oscar 'Dameron' Isaac and Adam 'Ren' Driver.





*¹ Which is nice because as I write this, I have yet to see Pacific Rim: Uprising, a movie which has caused me to take out a second mortgage to book enough storage-space for the reservations I have about it... ^{[ BACK ]}

*² And yet, not a single level-1 Star Wars connection. Ridiculous, I know. ^{[ BACK ]}

*³ And bear in mind that certain other movies at the moment feature a cast who constantly explain everything, while the plot details still remain disconcertingly vague. ^{[ BACK ]}

*⁴ With the exception of Gondo, brought to life by Harvey Keitel, whose canine avatar looks as tired and fleabitten as the actor's vocal cords sound... ^{[ BACK ]}


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