Isle of Dogs (Wes Anderson)

[Henry Gale]

IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5104604/) / Wiki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isle_of_Dogs_(film))

https://shyfyy.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/isleofdogs-2.jpg

[Henry Gale]

A treasure trove of imagination, charm, morbid humour, beautifully played text jokes, and a lot of heart in between.

I never warmed to Fantastic Mr. Fox and found it too self-aware, smug and with unevenly, thickly layered artifice to it that was overall impenetrable to me in my one viewing of it back in 2009, and as a result it unfortunately remains my least favourite Anderson film. But the amount that Isle of Dogs worked for me, especially in it leaving me considering how highly I'd rank it in Anderson's oeuvre, has now left me reconsidering and keen to revisit Fox. Because Dogs is just oh so good.

It's gorgeous, hilarious, sneakily poignant and sometimes just outright wild in its impulses. So, you know, just one of the most quietly refined and talented directors of modern times reminding you how good he is, shushing all the goofy parodic ideas about his perceived schtick and eccentricities by just making yet another excellent piece of film to add to his slowly astonishing filmography. No big deal.

**** / 9.2

[Pop Trash]

It probably won't because of the goddamn mouse house, but I hope this blows away A Wrinkle in Time at the box office once it opens wide.

[MadMan]

This is my most anticipated film of 2018.

[Henry Gale]

It probably won't because of the goddamn mouse house, but I hope this blows away A Wrinkle in Time at the box office once it opens wide.

I mean, I would love to dream similarly, but in terms of pursuing family audiences.. this is hard PG-13 arthouse fare that would've been R if it was live action. I can't imagine any marketing targeting kids. All its money will likely have to be made on Anderson's name alone.

But then again Grand Budapest was his biggest ever (making $174 million worldwide), this is his first movie since, and Wrinkle could bomb and further scare Disney away from non-franchise movies, so who knooooows!

[Pop Trash]

It probably won't because of the goddamn mouse house, but I hope this blows away A Wrinkle in Time at the box office once it opens wide.

A Wrinkle in Time is kinda bombing. There's hope for the future of humanity yet!

[Dukefrukem]

I burst out laughing at the "staring: Zooms"

Trying to find tickets for this. Apparently it's not opening until the 28th around here.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trWLY6NrS2Q

[DavidSeven]

This is breathtaking in its visual detail and a delightfully told story. Having watched the video above, I chuckled as characters explained elaborate plans (twice!). I think we can give up any hope that Anderson will ever go outside his comfort zone. In fact, he seem increasingly more precious about his aesthetic with each successive film. With that expectation in mind, Isle of Dogs is definitely an upper echelon work in his total oeuvre and creative evolution from his most similar work, The Fantastic Mr. Fox. I'm not sure if it will play well for kids, but it's a darn good "Wes Anderson movie."

[Pop Trash]

The only cringey bit is Greta Gerwig's white exchange student brow beating every Japanese person around her into revolution. I'd give Anderson the benefit of the doubt and say her character could be a satire of the "worldly" white social justice warrior type, but it does thread a very fine needle. Other than that, the accusations of "cultural appropriation" here seem as silly as criticizing Wong Kar Wai for "culturally appropriating" Americana in My Blueberry Nights or the infinite number of Europeans that have made movies in America. Film is a global medium, people. Plus it's co-written by a Japanese guy (Japanese-Japanese not Japanese-American). Also, that criticism feels misguided considering the film itself is quite obviously a fable about immigration and Otherness.

But, yeah, it's a beautiful and heartfelt piece of work.

[baby doll]

The only cringey bit is Greta Gerwig's white exchange student brow beating every Japanese person around her into revolution. I'd give Anderson the benefit of the doubt and say her character could be a satire of the "worldly" white social justice warrior type, but it does thread a very fine needle. Other than that, the accusations of "cultural appropriation" here seem as silly as criticizing Wong Kar Wai for "culturally appropriating" Americana in My Blueberry Nights or the infinite number of Europeans that have made movies in America. Film is a global medium, people. Plus it's co-written by a Japanese guy (Japanese-Japanese not Japanese-American). Also, that criticism feels misguided considering the film itself is quite obviously a fable about immigration and Otherness.Except, obviously, there's an asymmetrical relationship between the West and Asia that makes claiming it's all equally cultural appropriation as much a denial of basic reality as tweeting "All lives matter." That doesn't necessarily make Isle of Dogs a bad film (although for me it's probably Anderson's weakest since The Darjeeling Limited, coincidentally his previous Orientalist adventure), and I'm as sick to death as the next person of braindead liberal pundits who see the task of evaluation as simply sorting cultural artefacts into one of two categories--good, progressive ones and bad, conservative ones, as if there were no qualitative difference between, say, Dostoevsky and the Roseanne reboot, except that the latter is infinitely more important because "real" Americans are watching it--but that does not mean one should not be sensitive to the issue.

[Pop Trash]

Except, obviously, there's an asymmetrical relationship between the West and Asia that makes claiming it's all equally cultural appropriation as much a denial of basic reality as tweeting "All lives matter."

I don't know what metrics you are using. If you are talking about population, China and India have the US beat. If you are using GDP than, yes, US is #1 for now (with China coming up strong at #2, Japan being #3 and India at #7). The "cultural appropriation" is a bit more nebulous, although certainly Hollywood has a foothold on the world's entertainment, much more than other countries (although it should be noted that aside from Black Panther, the #2 and #3 worldwide top grossing 2018 movies are Chinese). I don't think I need to tell you this, but Hollywood has always had foreign filmmakers, since the only thing they care about is $$$. Is John Woo "appropriating" American culture when he makes Face/Off? Was Fritz Lang when he came to Hollywood to make the very American "crime" pictures (later dubbed 'film noir'). So no, I'm not especially concerned about the "cultural appropriation" of Wes Anderson working with a Japanese screenwriter to produce an animated film about talking dogs in Japan.

[Peng]

Plus it's co-written by a Japanese guy (Japanese-Japanese not Japanese-American).

There's a 90% chance of me loving this film, but I never get this kind of defense, even back as recently as some pointing out Japanese people being fine with the Ghost in the Shell remake as proof that it's ok. The majority of the Isle of Dogs' prominent (and mostly measured) takes about this, which have gotten some aggressive pushbacks against them personally, have been from Asian American critics, which sound about right.

[Henry Gale]

I gotta admit, when I first saw it, I didn't even think of Gerwig's exchange student as necessarily being white, since despite her blonde hair (which, even then, other characters had coloured and uniquely styled hair), the fact that her facial design reads as no more "western" than any of the other Japanese characters, and that her English is delivered in the same non-regionally-pegged American English as Frances McDormand's translator or any of the speaking dogs, my mind assumed she could've just as easily been mixed race or from a partially Asian-American family. (Also am I crazy in remembering a line of her saying she's living in Japan with her aunt? I mean she later speaks to her in Japanese, but I did see a lot of movies that week so maybe those types of details might have blended together between other things.) Looking online now, her character's last name apparently being Walker doesn't help my optimistic assumptions here.

So yeah, the fact that she's maybe the one and only white American character is a little icky, but I feel like Atari is much more of the audience's main human connection throughout the story and she's meant to just easily propel us through the takedown of the governmental forces on the other side of the story. And as it generally stands in symmetrical storytelling terms, I do like the balance of someone who's speaks the language of the majority of the human characters to sneak onto the island to attempt to save the dogs (or at least his own) and destroy the structures there, and then on the other side you have a human who speaks the language of the dogs (as we hear them) to find their way into a situation to ignite a revolution and uprise against the oppressive in their land. But yeah, I wish it didn't have the capacity of reading like a vital white saviour B-story because she is (and I will still asterisk this by saying "potentially" because I still feel there is a layer of ambiguity in animation as far as design, and particularly her's here) the only white character, even if that didn't occur to me until others started to point her out at such.

And it kinda sucks because I really like a lot of Tracy's scenes and especially the comedy that comes from a lot of the characters for the protest movement she embarks on. It's admittedly tricky, though.

[Pop Trash]

There's a 90% chance of me loving this film, but I never get this kind of defense, even back as recently as some pointing out Japanese people being fine with the Ghost in the Shell remake as proof that it's ok. The majority of the Isle of Dogs' prominent (and mostly measured) takes about this, which have gotten some aggressive pushbacks against them personally, have been from Asian American critics, which sound about right.

It's because Japanese people know more about Japan than 2nd or 3rd generation Japanese-Americans. It's like how certain Irish-Americans get obsessed about all things Irish, meanwhile actual Irish people merely shrug their shoulders and are like "meh, whatever."

[Peng]

Many of us who live in mostly homogenous Asian countries aren't the best sources (by which I don't mean to dismiss us entirely though) to come for racial/cultural takes, especially those that concern directly between western and eastern, and we are also not affected in our own country by how a part of one's identity is presented on screen to a diverse audience (and that's why I stress the importance of listening to Asian American voices). I can tell all about Thai stuff to an American director for them to use but that versimiltude doesn't tell you anything about the approach that it will be used in the director's story. Being correct about a culture sometimes doesn't mean the same as telling that culture well.

[baby doll]

I don't know what metrics you are using. If you are talking about population, China and India have the US beat. If you are using GDP than, yes, US is #1 for now (with China coming up strong at #2, Japan being #3 and India at #7). The "cultural appropriation" is a bit more nebulous, although certainly Hollywood has a foothold on the world's entertainment, much more than other countries (although it should be noted that aside from Black Panther, the #2 and #3 worldwide top grossing 2018 movies are Chinese). I don't think I need to tell you this, but Hollywood has always had foreign filmmakers, since the only thing they care about is $$$. Is John Woo "appropriating" American culture when he makes Face/Off? Was Fritz Lang when he came to Hollywood to make the very American "crime" pictures (later dubbed 'film noir'). So no, I'm not especially concerned about the "cultural appropriation" of Wes Anderson working with a Japanese screenwriter to produce an animated film about talking dogs in Japan.The metric I'm using is political and economic power, not population or box office receipts; that is to say, the United States clearly has more influence over Japan than Japan has over the United States (as has been the case since the forcible opening of Japan by the American navy in 1853). To claim that there's no difference between, say, Kitano Takeshi making a film in Los Angeles and Wes Anderson making a film about Japan (with or without the input of any local people), is to be willfully ignorant of history. After all, as Edward Said wrote, "The Orient was almost a European invention," and whatever its merits, Anderson's film belongs to a long tradition of artworks by Westerners inventing and reinventing a semi-mythical East. Indeed, the fact that Anderson uses Japan (or "Japan") as a colourful backdrop to an animated film about talking dogs only makes his project more dubious, not less.

[baby doll]

This article about the reception of Clint Eastwood's films in Japan (https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2018/03/07/films/clint-eastwoods-japan-critics-always-make-day/#.WsfditPwbPA) is perhaps relevant to the current discussion.

[Pop Trash]

This article about the reception of Clint Eastwood's films in Japan (https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2018/03/07/films/clint-eastwoods-japan-critics-always-make-day/#.WsfditPwbPA) is perhaps relevant to the current discussion.

The French love him too. Check out Cahiers du cinema's top ten lists from the 90s-00s.

[baby doll]

The French love him too. Check out Cahiers du cinema's top ten lists from the 90s-00s.That's certainly true, but I think the way Japanese reviewers (or at least male Japanese reviewers of a certain age) faun over Eastwood's every film (even the ones French reviewers describe as shipwrecks), needs to be understood as a symptom of the asymmetric power relationship between the two countries.

[Pop Trash]

That's certainly true, but I think the way Japanese reviewers (or at least male Japanese reviewers of a certain age) faun over Eastwood's every film (even the ones French reviewers describe as shipwrecks), needs to be understood as a symptom of the asymmetric power relationship between the two countries.

Using that as a metric of "asymmetric power relationship" is as absurd as me citing some American film dweeb fawning over Miyazaki or Kurosawa or Miike as "proof" of an "asymmetric power relationship" of Japan over the United States.

[baby doll]

Using that as a metric of "asymmetric power relationship" is as absurd as me citing some American film dweeb fawning over Miyazaki or Kurosawa or Miike as "proof" of an "asymmetric power relationship" of Japan over the United States.Except I'm not using it as a metric to prove the existence of an asymmetric power relation between the US and Japan; I'm using the fact of an asymmetric relationship which has existed for over 150 years (and therefore surely doesn't need to be proven) as an explanation for the reception of Eastwood's films in Japan. That is to say, if you accept the premise that, for a certain generation of Japanese film reviewer, Clint Eastwood is America, the praise his films get there kinda makes sense.

[baby doll]

Also possibly relevant to this discussion is Daisuke Miyao's fascinating book on Sessue Hayakawa (https://www.amazon.ca/Sessue-Hayakawa-Silent-Transnational-Stardom/dp/0822339692), which touches on the power relationship between the two countries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

[Mal]

its alright. lotta... "choices" by Anderson in this one. But the core story of the doggies is pretty great despite that. Really loved the voice work in this.

[Sycophant]

The core story about the relationship between dog and master, dog and self, and dog and dog is really lovely and brought me to tears, in no small part due to exquisite framing and incredible animation. Cranston's performance as Chief is a great middle-aged Anderson lead. The incredibly cartoonish villainy failed to engage or entertain me all that much and I found the fantasy Japan-like space more baffling and distracting (and somewhat troubling) than inspiring or thrilling. The film feels like it has two distinct halves and they never quite make the case for how well they go together. Ultimately, a lot of it left me cold, but there's a warmth in the center that I admired very much. I'm interested to see how a rewatch treats this contrast for me.

Please note that the above paragraph is more or less an overly verbose rephrase of what Zac Efron said right above me.

This and Fantastic Mr. Fox are by far my least favorite Andersons. And I'm pretty confident saying Anderson is my favorite American director of his generation.

[Sycophant]

This piece by Alison Willmore does an excellent job of unpacking the power and fantasy of the orientalism in Isle of Dogs and American filmmaking in general: "Orientalism Is Alive And Well In American Cinema (https://www.buzzfeed.com/alisonwillmore/isle-of-dogs-jared-leto-orientalism)." It's about

[Kirby Avondale]

Except I'm not using it as a metric to prove the existence of an asymmetric power relation between the US and Japan; I'm using the fact of an asymmetric relationship which has existed for over 150 years (and therefore surely doesn't need to be proven) as an explanation for the reception of Eastwood's films in Japan. That is to say, if you accept the premise that, for a certain generation of Japanese film reviewer, Clint Eastwood is America, the praise his films get there kinda makes sense.
I'm trying to imagine the conversation between you and one of these Japanese critics where you inform them that they love Eastwood because of American dominance of Japan. It sounds like an awkward conversation!

[Sycophant]

I watched Gran Torino on TV subtitled in Japan once and it's amazing what effect scrubbing out most of the protagonist's most offensive language can have.

[Ezee E]

When the dogs are on screen, it's as good as anything that Wes has ever done. When it goes off the island, it loses a little momentum, but it's still appealing to watch nonetheless. Wes gets to do everything he wants here with the island, and has a lot of fun going into certain chambers, playing with flashbacks, dreams, and dog bits.

The animated bits with the crying eyes got me every time.

Also, can't wait to play this on my TV in front of my dog.

[Watashi]

More of the same Hollywood anti-cat propaganda.

I get it. America loves doggies.

[Stay Puft]

Mild yay.

Incredible animation throughout, especially with the blending of mediums (e.g. hand drawn 2D animation on the computer and TV monitors). It reminded me a lot of Kubo and the Two Strings, or my reaction to that one, in that I was overwhelmed and impressed by the attention to detail, and the creative use of multiple animation styles, but largely underwhelmed by the narrative. There's a moment early in the film where everybody thinks Spots is dead, which hit me really hard, but the film quickly course corrects, sending the characters back down a well-trodden narrative path. It basically lost me at that point. The film routinely suggests the possibility of danger, or larger dramatic stakes, but always undercuts or backs down (e.g. sending the dogs into an incinerator as a gotcha moment, one of many which clearly worked on my audience, and I wish I could say the same for me, but alas).

Still, largely entertaining, and I had fun. Great voice casting for the dogs, lots of memorable minor characters (Tilda Swinton as Oracle was amazing), and I even loved the owl.

Miss me with the Greta Gerwig subplot, though. Isle of Dogs is a work of cultural appropriation (not a first for Wes Anderson, either), whether that impacts your opinion of it or not, and that subplot was a gross miscalculation at best.

[baby doll]

Isle of Dogs is a work of cultural appropriation (not a first for Wes Anderson, either), whether that impacts your opinion of it or notThis may be overly fussy, but I think it's worthwhile to differentiate Orientalism (i.e., essentialist representations of Asian societies) from cultural appropriation (using things made by other cultures), although the two can sometimes overlap. I point this out because everybody is engaged in cultural appropriation all the time: There's no natural connection between, say, Japanese people and manga; therefore, anybody who reads manga, regardless of their nationality, is appropriating someone else's work for their own purposes. That's not to say cultural appropriation is always okay (see, for instance, Justin Trudeau's Indian fashion fiasco, where he tried to "go native" by donning traditional Indian outfits on every day of his failed trip), but that's not what Anderson is doing here.

[Stay Puft]

This may be overly fussy

No, that's a useful clarification. I see the difference.

[TGM]

"Where do you hear all of these rumors?"
"Dogs talk, I listen. I like gossip."

I think this might be my new favorite Wes Anderson film. :cool:

[Spinal]

I think this might be my new favorite Wes Anderson film. :cool:

It's way up there, to be sure. I went into this a bit skeptical after finding Grand Budapest Hotel mostly tiresome, but came away highly impressed. It's genuinely funny, the story's engaging, and it's just beautiful to look at. I liked the way language was handled and felt like Japanese ritual (authentic or not) suited Anderson's meticulous style.

[MadMan]

I loved this movie. But I am a die hard Wes Anderson fan so I am quite biased.

[Milky Joe]

This was pretty sublime. I hope Anderson keeps making these silly, gorgeous little puppet shows.

I love the shadowy cat cabal always lurking in the fringes.

[Grouchy]

This was a charming and inventine romp with perfect voice acting. I'm long past expecting Wes Anderson to do anything but perfect his brand of symmetric-framing, oneliner-spoting dramedy, so I enjoy his movies more and more on that basis. There's one thing about his style that bugs me a bit, though, and it's the undercutting of seemingly important plot elements in order to keep the levity of the whole affair alive. Like when the rest of the dogs are chucked into a compacting machine and we might be tempted to believe it's true but it's merely a way of keeping the pack apart for a while to focus on the relationship between Atari and Chief. Not necessarily that moment alone, just the sheer amount of times he does something similar per movie. In a related vein, the villains were too much of a cartoon for my tastes.

[Peng]

The annoyed, snippy dismissiveness to legitimate cultural objections (especially from Asian-American critics) bothers me than anything in the actual film, although Isle of Dogs is not without its blatant missteps in this regard. I am truly baffled by choices made in the conception of US foreign exchange student Tracy Walker, who feels ill-conceived both culturally and narratively. It's best exemplified by the scene where she confronts the bereaved female scientist, which already feels grating without even delving into the unpleasantness underneath it; the surface of her character's functions is so unpleasant that for me it overwhelms any possible "subversiveness" some has argued for, whether in that scene or her character's ultimate place in the story.

As for the story itself, coming after one of the most incredible three-film consecutive runs from any director (Fantastic Mr. Fox, Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel), this is bound to be hard to measure up. But even without that comparison, this is still Anderson's most emotionally and thematically under-imagined in quite a while; the deep melancholy or unified emotional undercurrent to anchor his films, even in far lesser works like The Darjeeling Limited, just isn't there. There is some poignancy portrayed in the bond between dogs and humans, but it's comparatively thin by Anderson's standard. However, the film more than compensates by being one of his most gorgeous films ever, with level of intricate, satisfying visual details one could get lost in for days. And even without the cohesive force of his other films, when the story focuses on the adventure on Trash Island, Anderson's snappy storytelling and layered humor still remains as strong as ever. 7.5/10

[Dukefrukem]

You gotta be a cat lover to dislike this movie right?

[dreamdead]

For someone who found Grand Budapest Hotel so affirming, this one didn't quite work for me, even though the structural links between it and Mr. Fox are fairly obvious. There is a very dry humor to this one, though, that somehow gets diluted through the animation style. The voice acting is roundly solid, yet some of the choices, as others have noted, come off as more sterile than necessary. The repetition of information from speaker to newscaster translator, for example, seems precious rather than valuable. All the same, there are also some fun touches, whether it be the silliness of the dogs hanging in suspended compartments and still arguing as though nothing's out of the ordinary--all of these moments are fun enough.

[Dukefrukem]

How do folks like this over Fantastic Mr Fox? Do you guys remember the criticism of Anderson's directing with Fox?

I'm just wondering if people see it differently after that.

[transmogrifier]

I haven't really enjoyed an Anderson film fully since Fantastic Mr. Fox. He has calcified and lost the ability to craft a satisfying narrative. Everything is sealed airtight in his art direction, leaving nothing much else except appreciating witty little asides scattered around like gold in a musty art museum.

[Skitch]

Havent watched this yet, but Fox is the best thing hes done imo.

[Dukefrukem]

Havent watched this yet, but Fox is the best thing hes done imo.

You mean, if he actually "directed" it?