Isle of Dogs

Set in Japan, Isle of Dogs follows a boy's odyssey in search of his lost dog.

From the director who brought you Fantastic Mr. Fox, Wes Anderson delivers yet another stunning stop motion film. This is by far, the most beautiful movie I have seen in a long time. Every single frame of this movie holds such artistic value that it could most definitely pass as a laptop screensaver. Coupled with the fact that Wes Anderson has a knack for visually symmetrical shots that tend to pan completely horizontally and you have a visual spectacle.

"She sees the future." - Boss

"No. She understands TV." - King

Having voice actors such as Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand and Scarlett Johansson proved to be distracting at times. Nonetheless, the voice acting was spot on.

The sound-mixing and the score was very useful in making you feel like the tension and high stakes of certain scenes. I found it baffling that they did not provide subtitles for the Japanese characters but I guess we had to see the movie from the point of view of the dogs, as their barks were translated throughout the film.

The movie is about a 12 year old boy on the search for his loyal dog and he ultimately has the goal of saving all dogs of a city. The dogs had a history of oppression and once a disease broke out among them, people in power saw it as an opportunity to rid of them. One might state the cultural relevance of a group having had a history of oppression with things not yet changing many years later. Additionally, with Covid-19, the disease seemed very relevant. We are also introduced to dogs that had been experimented on. Lastly, there are sabotages and misreporting by the media that seems similar in our current times. However, I can't seem to draw any conclusions or opinions on such matters from the film. Perhaps I am just projecting.

Anti-Dog chef preparing poison wasabi

The story at times felt somewhat draggy and all in all it could have been more compelling. Nonetheless, the witty humour, stunning visuals and immersive sounds of the movie allowed me to never lose focus and attention on the movie, regardless of the pacing of the story. The story was just good enough to keep me glued to the screen.

8.5/10

Check out how much effort and the amount of attention to detail given to the production of the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtgOn5eXq5w

Sypnosis has been taken from IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5104604/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0