ISLE OF DOGS : Tuesday 17th April 2018.

'ISLE OF DOGS' which I saw earlier in the week is a film by Wes Anderson who has been Directing, Producing, Writing and at times Acting in films since 1996 when he launched himself onto the movie making world with 'Bottle Rocket'. Since then there has been 'Rushmore', 'The Royal Tenenbaums', 'The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou', 'The Darjeeling Limited', 'Fantastic Mr. Fox', 'Moonrise Kingdom', 'The Grand Budapest Hotel' and now 'Isle of Dogs' on which he Directs, Co-Produces, wrote the Screenplay and came up with the original storyline in tandem with Jason Schwartzman and Roman Coppola. The film was in competition at the recent 68th Berlin International Film Festival where it was awarded the Silver Bear for Best Director, before going on limited release in the US in late March before its much wider release last week, and here in Australia too. The film has been universally acclaimed for its stop motion animation, storyline and deadpan humour. It has so far taken US$30M at the Box Office.

Starring an ensemble cast of voice talent, the film here centres on a dystopian near-future Japan, in which a 'dog flu', 'snout fever' and 'canine saturation' virus spreads throughout the dog population. When, by executive decree, handed down by the ruthless Mayor of Megasaki City, Kobayashi (Kunichi Nomura), all dogs are exiled to a vast rubbish tip located just off the Japanese mainland called Trash Island. This public announcement comes despite Professor Watanabe (Akira Ito) indicating to the gathered crowd that he is close to finding a cure for the pandemic spreading through the dog population.

The first dog to be banished to Trash Island, is Spots (voiced by Liev Schreiber) the household pet and watchdog of Kobayashi, who belonged to Atari Kobayashi (Koyu Rankin) - the twelve year old orphaned nephew and ward of the Mayor.

Some six months later on, and young Atari sets off alone in a miniature Junior-Turbo Prop aeroplane and flies across the narrow stretch of sea in search of Spots. After a crash landing, in which Atari is injured but not critically so, he is rescued by a pack of newly-found mongrel friends, Rex (Edward Norton), King (Bob Balaban), Duke (Jeff Goldblum), Boss (Bill Murray) and Chief (Bryan Cranston). The pack of dogs decide to help Atari locate Spots, although Chief is reluctant to help the human boy, because he is a stray and has had bad experiences with humans earlier in the life when he was a household pet.

At the start of their journey they come across a cage in which they believe the skeleton of a dog contained therein is Spots. With the cage door still firmly locked shut there would have been no means of escape, and a broken name tag with the letters 'SPO' cements their opinion that the poor dog must have perished. However, they learn a short time afterwards that there was a mix up and the skeletal animal in the cage was 'SPORT' and not Spots, indicating that he may still be alive on the island somewhere.

Following a stand-off with a rescue team sent to retrieve Atari form the island, and some practical advice from a purebred show dog named Nutmeg (Scarlett Johansson), Chief has a change of mind and decides to accompany Atari on his quest to locate his dog. En route they come across two wise dogs - Oracle (Tilda Swinton) and Jupiter (F. Murray Abraham) who point the pack to a remote part of the island where a cannibal tribe of dogs gather.

In the meantime, Professor Watanabe has found a cure, but is poisoned by Kobayashi to keep the cat loving Mayor from having to return the dogs from Trash Island in order that they can integrate back into society. American female foreign exchange student Tracy Walker (Greta Gerwig) suspects that something is not quite right in Dodge City and suspects a conspiracy behind Watanabe's death, and tries to call it out. She confronts a distraught Assistant Scientist to Watanabe, Yoko Ono (Yoko Ono) who confirms Tracy's suspicions and hands over the last remaining bottle of the cure.

Along the way to locate Spots, Atari and Chief are separated from the rest of the pack. Resting up, Atari decides to give Chief a much needed bath having noticed that he is of the same breed as his beloved Spots. In so doing Chief's coat returns to its natural white and black flecked colours rather than the filthy black that he had become. Later they catch up with the remaining pack but are set upon by an ambush of Kobayashi's men again. Spots arrives with a small army of dogs and helps fend off the attackers. In flashback we learn that Spots was rescued by the so called cannibal tribe of dogs and over the following months became the leader of the pack. Spots also advises that Chief is in fact his brother, and they are now almost identical. Spots asks Atari to transfer his guard dog responsibilities over to Chief, to which the pair agree.

Atari and his new found canine friends learn by way of an owl, that Kobayashi intends to exterminate all dogs on Trash Island as a ploy to win support in the upcoming elections. Atari and many of the pack decide to head back to Megasaki City to prevent this from happening. At the election ceremony as Kobayashi is about to give the order to exterminate, Tracy Walker steps up with an impassioned speech and announces that a cure has been found, and that their is hard evidence of corruption in Kobayashi's ranks. At this point Atari and his dog pack arrive confirming that the cure serum works.

Kobayashi sees the error of his ways but his henchman Major Domo (Akira Takayama) has different views and plans to proceed with the extermination. A fight breaks out between Atari, his dogs and the perpetrators resulting in the big red 'Execute' button being depressed. A hacker friend of Tracy's has however, intervened, and reversed the poison gas injection back on the dogs captors so allowing the Trash Island dogs to escape death and go free.

During the fight however, Atari and Spots are badly injured. So much so that Atari's only remaining kidney fails. Out of guilt Kobayashi agrees to donate one of his kidney's to save the life of his young nephew (with the operation scene shown from above probably being a world first stop motion kidney transplant from one patient directly to another!) With Kobayashi serving time in a Japanese jail cell, by law the mantle of Mayor falls to Atari who quickly decrees that all dogs be allowed to reintegrate with society and their former owners. Tracy and Atari become close friends, and Chief teams up with Nutmeg and assumes the position of guard dog for Atari. Spots recovers from his injuries, and raises his puppies somewhere peaceful and quiet hidden away within the grounds of the Kobayashi household.

The quality and level of detail in the stop motion animation is what really stands out in this film, together with the impressive voice cast who really inhibit their canine (and human) characters and bring them to life. The storyline is essentially Spots recovery over a seemingly post-apocalyptic garbage filled wasteland interspersed with moments of legend and dog character back story; clashes between canines and humans involving cotton wool clouds of dust from which periodically emerge paws, snouts and clenched fists and wayward legs; and moments of deadpan humour which won't make you laugh out loud but rather chuckle under your breath. In a way this is a sad film about the way mankind treats his 'best friend' but its also relevant for today's political landscape with fake news, dictatorships, deportation and social and cultural divide. All that said, the beauty here is in the scrappy, dirty, flea ridden dogs scavenging around the garbage heap (that upon closer inspection reveals hidden gems) seeing out their final days offered a last chance at redemption at the hands of a twelve year old lad. On the less favourable side Anderson takes liberties with his somewhat skewed view of Japan; and having the humans all speak the native Japanese (save for Tracy Walker) with subtitles when it suits, detracts from the story arc; there are a few holes in the plot along the way too and in places the film really failed to hold my attention. It's worth seeing, but you can easily wait for the BluRay, digital download or the PayTV screening. Also starring the voice talents of Frances McDormand, Harvey Keitel, Ken Watanabe, Fisher Stevens, Roman Coppola, Anjelica Huston and Courtney B. Vance.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-