Japan. Kobayashi, the mayor of the city of Megasaki, ordered 750,000 dogs deported to a nearby trash island, ostensibly due to a dog flu that is dangerous to people. A 12-year old boy, Atari, goes to the city defying the ban to find his beloved lost dog Spot, and is assisted by Chief, a local stray dog. He finds Spot, who is Chief’s brother, but the latter admits the cannot return since he now has puppies with his sweetheart. An American exchange student, Tracy, discovers that Professor Watanabe has a cure for dog flu, and thus pressures Kobayashi into ending the separation of dogs. The dogs return back to Megasaki and team up with humans, while Atari adopts Chief.
9 years after his charming trip to stop-motion animation with “The Fantastic Mr. Fox”, the director and screenwriter Wes Anderson returned to the said medium with “Isle of Dogs”, repeating this success more-or-less. “Isle of Dogs” is an unusual allegory on the Holocaust (the dogs are exiled on an island which is practically a ghetto, and are planned to be killed) and authoritarianism (mayor Kobayashi built his career by fermenting xenophobia and fear, tricking people into thinking only he can “protect” them from dogs), with several dark and unpleasant moments (Atari finds a dog skeleton trapped in a cage; the poisoned sushi preparation sequence with a live fish being hacked), yet wildly contrasted with moments of positive humor, oddball situations (in a perfectly gentleman manner, the dogs stop threatening each other and say: “Wait a second. Before we attack each other and tear ourselves to shreds like a pack of maniacs, let's just open the sack first and see what's actually in it. It might not even be worth the trouble.”) and delightful ideas (for instance, all inserted subtitles, including the opening credits, are spelled in both the Japanese and Latin script). As with most of Anderson’s films, his symmetrical shot compositions are exquisite, but the sole events they are showing are often bland, mechanical and artificial, and will thus not reach you on a deeper level. His stories are not grounded in reality, but are autistic art-films without real stakes or true emotions, where characters talk like robots. This is mostly obvious in the fact that only exchange student Tracy feels like a real three-dimensional character with wit, while all others act too schematic: Bill Murray’s and Scarlett Johansson’s characters are just there in two-three sequences and feel like throw-away material. Viewers more inclined towards these kind of films will enjoy “Isle of Dogs” more, and be amused by its cameo appearances (Yoko Ono!) and imaginative world-building.
Grade:++
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