It’s a dog of a life on a canine isle
Isle OIf Dogs (PG, 101 mins) Directed by Wes Anderson
In a dystopian near-future (and how many times have I written that line in the past few years?) a doggy plague – in both senses of the word – strikes mainland Japan.
The dogs are too numerous for some people’s comfort and the dogs are becoming ill with a form of canine influenza which – we are told – is threatening to jump species.
Invoking a centuries-old feud between the cat-loving Kobayashi dynasty who now hold the mayorship of the fictional city of Megasaki and the few remaining dog-lovers in the prefecture, the corrupt and totalitarian mayor banishes all dogs to Trash Island, an abandoned industrial site and refuse dump a few miles offshore.
Months later, Megasaki is bereft of hounds, while Trash Island is home to hundreds. They form into packs, squabble over what scraps of food there are and spread endless rumours and conspiracy theories on their plight and futures.
Driven by his love of his own once-guard dog Spot (of course) the mayor’s adopted son and ward Atari steals a plane and crash lands on the island, determined to rescue his dog and to find the truth behind the mayor’s schemes.
Isle of Dogs (I’m guessing the homophone is intentional) is Wes Anderson’s (Rushmore, The Grand Budapest Hotel) tribute to man’s best friend.
Anderson resurrects the stopmotion animation technique of Fantastic Mr Fox and tells his tale with an amazing – truly breathtakingly beautiful – range of sets and tableaux. The film unfolds against richly layered dioramas, painstakingly and wittily detailed. Viewed only as an expression of the model-makers’ and puppeteers’ art, then Isle of Dogs is a flat-out masterpiece of design and craft. What was astonishing in Fox, has evolved into something even greater.
But all the beauty and care in the world adds up to nothing if the story can’t hold our attention. And this might be this film’s greatest triumph. Anderson has occasionally let us down with thin plots and characters who seemed more like droll mannequins than living people. But in Dogs, Anderson made me care more about the fate of a cloth puppet street-dog than he did with any of the cast of The Grand Budapest Hotel or The Life Aquatic.
The voices – Bill Murray, Bryan Cranston, Scarlett Johansson, F Murray Abraham and many others – are all superb, bringing some real pathos and heart to the puppets’ limited expressiveness. A late cameo from Harvey Keitel actually had at least one person in the theatre in tears. As someone who used to get choked up and misty eyed when one of my chickens bit the dust, I can only sympathise. get that. Yes, you will be able to imagine Ricky Baker and Hec somewhere in the treeline just across town. And that’s a fine thing.
Waititi – who is an executive producer on The Breaker Upperers – has perfected a cinematic shorthand of very smart characters who struggle to express themselves, of honesty
Anderson gets accused occasionally of treating his settings as not much more than backdrops to his storytelling, with no obvious attempt to be truthful, or even respectful, to the countries he sets his films in.
Personally, I heard the entitled musings of the cast of The Darjeeling Limited – more aware of their own neuroses than they were of the entirety of India outside their train window – as Anderson’s own droll self-loathing.
Likewise, Greta Gerwig’s eventually triumphing over deception, and a pearl of real loss and sadness being protected by layers of jokes and distractions.
The Breaker Upperers does share some of that DNA. But it is also a film that stands alone and writes its own rules.
I think The Breaker Upperers is the funniest and most likeable film I’ve seen this year. Go see it. American exchange student and crusading journalist in Isle of Dogs has been catching flak as a ‘‘white saviour’’ trope of the worst sort. But I’m choosing to read her as a knowing satire of the same. Maybe I’m being naive and generous. Your opinion may well be different from mine.
Isle of Dogs is a layered, beautiful and engrossing film. If you’ve ever liked Wes Anderson before, it will quite probably be one of your favourite and bestremembered films of 2018.
On their final night, Olivia meets the charismatic Carter (Hemlock Grove’s Landon Liboiron) and happily chats the evening away until bar closing time, when he suggests she and her cadre continue the party at a secluded location he knows ‘‘that’s a bit of a hike’’. Once there, Carter suggests a friendly game of Truth or Dare, a proposal initially met with dismay.
‘‘What is this, a second-grade sleepover?’’ one opines.
‘‘If we play it right though, it’s the chance to expose your friend’s deepest secrets,’’ Carter retorts.
Naturally, it’s all fun and games until someone loses. A long-held trust, but in this case much worse is yet to come because this is one game not easily forgotten or left behind.
A kind of a cross between It Follows, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Beverly Hills 90210 (half the cast are at least a decade older than their characters) and borrowing liberally from the Final Destination franchise’s fickle (but relentless) finger of fate conceit, Truth or Dare feels neither credible nor inspired.
Director Jeff Wadlow (the far superior, similarly genred Cry Wolf) manages a moment or two of genuine pathos, but these are overwhelmed by the convenient contrivances and poorly scripted scenarios dreamed up by him and three other writers, whose credits vary wildly, from Boston Legal to Wrestlemania.
Another Hollywood horror which seemingly attempts to dissuade American youths from travelling outside their homeland (as well as blaming ‘‘the church’’ for unleashing such evil), Truth or Dare’s mad Mexican moral malevolence certainly doesn’t have the charisma or chutzpah of Freddy, Jason or even Destination’s Death.
As our heroes face up to their (and others’) demons, it’s easy to become bored by the ploddingly predictable recriminations, regrets and repressed romantic feelings that surface. Although marginally better than Robert De Niro’s Hide and Seek, one hopes we can snuff out this sub-genre before someone comes up with a spooky Spotlight or sinister Spin the Bottle.