Produced and edited for Brock University’s Writing Cultural Criticism for the Media course, which focused on the development of skills and techniques for reviewing and discussing popular culture.

Despite being a film about man’s best friend, Isle of Dogs is not always for dog lovers who are faint of heart.

Released to theatres in 2018 and a recent addition to Netflix’s current lineup, Wes Anderson’s feature film follows the same stop motion style used in his 2009 animated comedy Fantastic Mr. Fox. In a dystopian future, the fictional Japanese city of Megasaki faces an epidemic outbreak of “Dog Flu” which threatens to cross the species boundary and infect humans. Under the rule of mayor Kenji Kobayashi, who is a member of a cat-loving dynasty, dogs are exiled to Trash Island, a location off-shore that has long served as a dumping point for refuse. Six months after the decree is passed, 12-year-old Atari Kobayashi (the ward and distant nephew of mayor Kobayashi) crashes on the island after having stolen a plane to search for his dog Spots, who was the first to be deported. Assisted by a pack of dogs, they search the island for Atari’s beloved companion as a conspiracy against all dogs is slowly revealed.

One of the concepts that really interested me was the use of language in the film. In Isle of Dogs, all the humans speak Japanese while dog barks are interpreted as English. Spoken Japanese is only translated through diegetic sources such as translators, keeping the audience’s knowledge mostly limited to that of the dogs. It’s an interesting idea that’s unfortunately weighed down by a hint of cultural appropriation. Despite drawing much of its influence from Japan, most of the voice cast is comprised largely of famous American actors, including Jeff Goldblum, Bryan Cranston, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, and Scarlett Johansson. The only recognizable Japanese actors credited in the film are Ken Watanabe as a minor character, and Yoko Ono as a character with her exact name and next to no dialogue.

As a Wes Anderson film, Isle of Dogs bears the director’s stylistic use of symmetrically structured shots. While it lends to the charm of many Wes Anderson pictures, its overuse in Isle of Dogs makes the technique feel less whimsical. Rather than trying to imitate life through animation, the artificiality that results from the forced symmetry of the film’s shots instead deducts from the illusion of life.

The film’s strength lays mostly within its visual style. Meticulous detail in the fur and features gives each dog a small amount of life-likeness. Even when sitting still, an unseen breeze can be seen gently rustling the dogs’ matted fur, dirtied from living in exile within a garbage dump. Adding to the grim and destitute environment is a matching colour palette of dull greys and browns, which serve to underline the garbage-strewn locale.

Despite being surrounded by disease and trash, the dogs of Isle of Dogs still manage to look soft and pettable at times.

That’s what bothers me the most about the film. Once the glamour of its visual detail wears off, Isle of Dogs becomes depressing to watch. At its heart the film is about the cruelty enacted on dogs by a society swayed by panic. The first twenty minutes of the film alone depict a dog’s ear being torn off by another dog, a metal pipe being ripped from Atari’s head (only to be replaced in a following scene to restore his consciousness), and the bones of a dog who died of starvation trapped in a cage that nobody could open. Not to mention the desire of one of the dogs, Rex, early on to end his life after seeing no future on the island. The hint of a dog’s desire for suicide is followed up nonchalantly by a rumour shared of how one of their brothers ended his life “hanging from his own leash”.

While there is narrative and some degree of character among the dogs, it only goes fur-deep. Each of the dogs introduced to the audience has a name which is clearly visible on their tag, a gimmick, and a celebrity voice to match. For example, Duke is a Siberian Husky played by Jeff Goldblum whose gimmick is to share rumours to the rest of the pack. The plot is just as ill-defined, being all bark and no bite. After a cure for the Dog Flu is discovered, it’s revealed that the illness was intentionally released as a reason to kill off all the dogs for good. Why? Because the mayor’s ancestors hated dogs and like cats. That’s the only motivation given behind the planned extermination of dogs. The cat/dog dichotomy that thinly veils the topic of xenophobia is poorly executed, providing a reason for bad guys to be “bad” without any further discourse to discuss why they’re “bad”.

Overall Isle of Dogs is a film compelled by visual storytelling over narrative and character. While interesting to watch as a visual piece, it has no interest in teaching an old dog new tricks.