Day: April 23, 2018

Isle of Dogs, 12th April 2018

Many, many years ago, just after the London Docklands Development Corporation was set up in 1981 I had cause to visit the Isle of Dogs, the real one, as part of my academic studies. It was a desolate sh*thole then, with all due respect to the few residents still camped out there. I saw some stray dogs on my visit. I swear it.

It is much better now. Obviously. With all those towers, activity and people. Or is it? Was it better in its heyday as a docks, all misty-eyed, working class solidarity, shepherding the fruits of Empire. Or when it was first laid out built on capital from the evil of slavery, as so much of this country’s wealth was. I have no idea but it is interesting food for thought.

Anyway, f*ck all to do with Wes Anderson’s latest near masterpiece, unless of course old Wes was secretly slumming it with some creative chums in Limehouse at the time. I have enjoyed what I have seen of Mr Anderson’s films, namely The Royal Tenenbaums and Grand Budapest Hotel, admired them even more, but all that artifice, activity, trickery, and well, off-kilter-ness, makes it hard to connect emotionally. That is true to an extent here though the surface simplicity of the tale and the stop-motion makes it less arch than these predecessors. And that comes from someone who is not a dog person. Or a cat person. Or a goldfish person. Or a budgie person. Come to think of it I am not even a person person really.

Wes has collaborated here with literally hundreds of other creatives, (I stayed behind to watch all the credits roll up just to see, not my best ever idea), to deliver his spectacular stop-motion animation. Apparently a fair number of said creatives are based in Three Mills Studios, a short, (and very fine), walk down the River Lea and Limehouse Cut to the Isle of Dogs. One of the Three Mills is the House Mill which is reputedly the largest tidal mill in the world. I was fortunate enough to be shown around said mill, now maintained by a Trust and open on a Sunday, whilst out on a walk a couple of years ago. Once you get your head round how it works you see just how marvellous in is in its simplicity. Geeky I know but fascinating.

Back to Isle of Dogs (film). In addition to an army of artists, Mr Anderson has chucked the kitchen sink of plot devices at his story and employed some of Hollywood’s most discernible voices: Jeff Goldblum, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Scarlett Johanssen, Greta Gerwig, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinson, Harvey Keitel and, most memorably, Bryan Cranston as Chief. An orphan, an evil uncle, banishment, disenfranchisement, ecological collapse, plague, technology harnessed for dastardly purposes, rescue, trial by ordeal, redemption, there is a soupcon of everything, mixed together and gently simmered though still digestible for all ages.

There is some gentle homage to the great directors of Japanese cinema, straight and animated, (apparently Kurosawa make a film set on a rubbish heap), and the setting and collaboration is avowedly Japanese. The screenplay comes from Mr Anderson, Roman Coppola (again), Jason Schwartzman (again) and Kunichi Nomura, (who also voices Mayor Kobayashi). The dog’s barks are voiced in English, the Japanese language is only sporadically sub-titled.

I gather a whole load of guff has been written about the apparently dark forces of cultural appropriation here, given Mr Anderson’s range of Japanese stylisations . I see the argument but would not know where to start with marking out the cultural borders that would make such transgressions logical or credible. Who sets these boundaries, how and when? If this offends you will have a awful lot of shared cultural history to unravel and I, for one, would need to know how this separation was to be policed. This sort of thinking worries me.

As for the simple story of a boy and his dog, I loved it. The distancing effect which tarnishes Mr Anderson’s other films is disarmed making it much easier to root for the characters. The craft is admirable. It is a completely realised world but still doesn’t hide its cartoon roots. The score brings new definition to the word eclectic, extending well beyond the expected taiko drum rolls. It is visually funny but never tries too hard. Whilst I may not have laughed out loud at exactly the same time of the little’uns in the audience, the fact is we both laughed, ad that takes some skill. And the draughtsman in Mr Anderson can be given full rein, as his, and his collaborators’s, imaginations, range across background and foreground, to create striking scene after scene.

There is a lot here. However it works for you though, it will work for you. Don’t miss it.