The stop-motion film imagines a Japanese folktale about canine exiles and human greed, with voices by Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum and Scarlett Johansson.
I write this sentence with a dog staring at me, wondering when I’ll slip her another slice of apple. There are no cats in the house. There never have been. My canine sympathies are clear.
Wes Anderson ’s latest, “Isle of Dogs,” is worth seeing and often very droll, as well as exactingly, rigorously, fastidiously composed, stop-motion frame by frame. The film’s blatant anti-cat prejudice — I’m fine with that. We’ll get to the questions of cultural appropriation and plurality of perspectives in a minute.
This is writer-director Anderson’s second stop-motion animation feature, the first being “Fantastic Mr. Fox” nine years ago. Cool in affect and fantastically dense in its detail, it’s set 20 years in the future. The fictional Japanese metropolis of Megasaki City is run with an iron fist by a mayor (voiced by Kunichi Nomura, who receives story credit along with Anderson, Roman Coppola and Jason Schwartzman). The mayor, the latest in a long line of feline-loving warlords, has banished all dogs to Trash Island. Looking like Toshiro Mifune from Kurosawa’s “High and Low,” from the boxy suit to the caterpillar mustache, the scowling authoritarian rationalizes the quarantine by spreading fears of a potentially fatal “dog flu” crossing over to the human population.
Spots (Liev Schreiber), the loyal dog of the mayor’s 12-year-old ward, Atari (Koyu Rankin), is the first to be exiled. Many others follow. Anderson’s interest lies primarily with the ragtag alpha-dog pack whose leader is Chief, voiced by Bryan Cranston, and who romances the deadpan show dog, Nutmeg, voiced by Scarlett Johansson. Jeff Goldblum is Duke, the resident gossip; the mascot, Boss, is lent the dry distinction of Bill Murray; and Bob Balaban and Edward Norton portray King and Rex, respectively.
The jolly drive of that theme contrasts the bleak environment. Trash Island is part “Wall-E,” part abandoned nuclear power plant. The dogs fight over maggoty scraps of food, and dream of their old lives. The dogs’ voices are predominantly American; Atari’s spare dialogue is rarely if ever subtitled; the character of Tracy carries a whiff of the white savior, though Anderson would no doubt argue she’s just another victim of cultural dislocation and a different sort of exile in a story full of exiles.
