Isle of Dogs is a perfect example of Anderson's artistry. The incredible design of the film and its stop-motion animation are more than enough to earn its praise. Abundant details keep everything magnificent on a big screen. The film isn't as colorful or vibrant as, for example, Moonrise Kingdom, but it's got some really arresting moments, especially the Western-meets-noir moments on Trash Island. It's got some slick, dry humor, too, which I was digging for the first half of the film, along with some incredible music. But style only works for me when it reinforces content.
The story is just weird. Thousands of dogs suffering dog flu and the prejudices of a dictatorial mayor are banished to a nearby landfill island. A lone boy, nephew to the despot -- destined for greatness by proximity to greatness, no doubt -- crashes his plane on Trash Island to find his own dog Spots. A group of alpha dogs (who are really anything but alpha in demeanor, as they gossip and bumble throughout the film) befriend him and help him search.
Unfortunately, Anderson keeps everything at a sort of ironic distance, valuing his own aesthetic over developing context or enhancing meaning in the story he's telling. That's not unlike his approach to every film under his name, but here I didn't see how it matched the story.
The film's logic is also woefully skewed. The dogs, though living in Japan, speak English and cannot understand the Japanese boy's speech, which becomes a point of sourly humorous absurdity. It seems that formal Japanese speeches must include a haiku poem, another point of absurdist humor that sat badly with me. And then there's the motif of a mushroom cloud (!) every time something explodes, something that felt severely shortsighted on Anderson's part. If Anderson wanted to pander to his American audience, presumably because we're so shallow we need to identify with the characters and can only do so when they speak English or are white, why set his movie in Japan?
A few more quick problems I noted. Most of the Japanese dialogue, rather than directly translated for the audience or even subtitled, is rendered though the medium of Frances McDormand's dialogue as a reporter. She translates (maybe) the essential bits of exposition. In a movie of male characters and male voice actors, it's not insignificant that there is one female dog (voiced by Scarlett Johansson) who is called a bitch at least once. Accurate? Sure. In poor taste? You betcha. The film also has an interesting anti-cat theme, one that I can sympathize with, that feels overt and more than a little sinister.
I was most disturbed, though, by the character of Tracy (voiced by Greta Gerwig, who really should have known better), an exchange student investigating the politics in Japan and the corruption of the mayor. Tracy is the White Savior, rousing the otherwise voiceless people of Japan and rallying them to confront the mayor. Her afro-style hair notwithstanding, when she finally leads a protest to interrupting the mayor's public address, she raises her fist in what looks suspiciously like a Black Power salute (never mind the lack of people of color in the ensemble film). Then, of course, there's the scene where she violently assaults the scientist Yoko Ono (voiced by Yoko Ono) to get her to stand up for herself and fight back against the mayor.
WHAT? Yeah. That happened.
I don't know, maybe I'm being too harsh. But I just didn't enjoy this movie, beautiful as it may be. Its problems are far more troubling than I expected; so much so, in fact, that I want to revisit his other movies and see if they're as disturbing. Humor doesn't have to come at the cost of racist or sexist jokes, and there's really no excuse for it these days. Especially not when your story sucks as it is.
IMDb: Isle of Dogs
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