ISLE OF DOGS
Rover’s Return
When it comes to the level of sheer craft, Wes Anderson’s return to stop-motion animation takes the rosette for first in its class.
Set 20 years in the future, it sees a Japanese mayor banishing 750,000 mutts to the garbage-strewn Trash Island (though you’d think it was more like 20), after an outbreak of dog flu that threatens to jump the species barrier. Mayor Kobayashi’s own “bodyguard dog” is one of those expelled, leading 12-year-old ward Atari to embark on a search for his beloved Spots.
It’s very much business as usual for Anderson, with – as intermittently occurs with his films – the intricately detailed aesthetic making more of an impression than the storytelling. With its vistas of bamboo and cherry blossom and structures made from old bottles, it certainly looks stunning. But there isn’t much to the tale, and while there are moments of sweetness, the often deadpan tone tends to keeps you at arm’s length from any emotion. You may find yourself marvelling at the mechanics more than you get sucked into the story.
Extras On Blu-ray, short featurettes (21 minutes) provide interesting insights into the animation process: the live-action reference videos, the mouldmaking, the replacement face systems used to create facial expressions. When you see 297 freckles being hand-painted on, it really brings home the amount of painstaking work involved. But the highlight is five minutes of cast interview snippets, presented using their puppets, à la Nick Park’s Creature Comforts. A trailer and gallery round things off; DVD buyers get nothing. Ian Berriman
The 1597 play The Isle Of Dogs led to co-writer Ben Jonson being imprisoned for “lewd and mutinous behaviour”.
It’s business as usual for Anderson