Isle of Dogs review

Isle of Dogs is the latest film by Wes Anderson, and envisions an island where dogs are condemned to, after illness and disease spreads rapidly across the Japanese dog population.

This was the first of five films I saw at the Glasgow Film Festival this year, so I'd like to start by thanking the festival programmers for putting on the festival.

As a casual fan of Wes Anderson's films, so I was quite looking forward to this film. Unlike his previous stop motion animated film, this is a completely original idea. While Anderson was able to add his usual style and quirk to the story of Fantastic Mr Fox, he had to loosely follow the original story. This resulted in a film I greatly enjoyed, but Roald Dahl would have hated. By not working with any source material he is able to shape the story however he likes to.

This is probably his most political film. There is a decent amount of commentary within a story which is slightly non conventional. That said, it isn't the focal point of the film. It really is a story about a boy and his dog; following 12 year old Atari Kobayashi as he travels to Trash Island (the titular Isle of Dogs) to rescue his dog Spots. Once he arrives, he is welcomed by a pack of dogs who decide - through a democratic vote - to help the boy. This pack of alpha dogs is without a leader, as they are all the leader. Every time a decision must be made, Edward Norton's Duke always suggests putting it to a vote. Also in the pack is Jeff Goldblum's gossip, Bob Balaban's ex-advert star, Bill Murray's sports mascot, and Bryan Cranston's stray dog - Chief.

The majority of the English dialogue comes from these, and other, dogs. Anderson has taken the decision to keep all the Japanese dialogue in Japanese, occasionally having an interpreter present to translate what they are saying, while any English speaking characters also speak in English. The dogs barks have been rendered into English. It was a bold move that payed off to not have any subtitles with the Japanese spoken scenes. The non televised scenes with no interpreters actually work well at conveying what is being said by using visuals and body language. Although, I do wonder how it plays in Japanese.

In short: I really enjoyed it.

I realise that I'm so far behind that all the films I saw at the festival are now on general release. So, sorry about that to the one person who reads my reviews.