BEFORE: I made a special effort to get out to the movie theater to see this one in early May, because I believed that it wouldn't be in release for much longer. I'd kept an eye on the ticket availability through the IMDB, and as of May 1, there were no screenings scheduled past May 3, so I believed it was my last chance, and if I missed it, I'd have to wait for the next Academy screener season. But since I tend to love Wes Anderson films, I didn't want to let that happen, so I texted my old boss and ex-co-worker to arrange a night out, because it seemed like the kind of film that we would all have gone to see together, back when we worked together, representing stop-motion animators.
I went with just my former co-worker, Gina, because my boss had another commitment, but it was still good to see her and catch up over sandwiches after. I invited my wife to come along too, but considering how much she loves dogs, I don't know if she could take a film where dogs are being abandoned by their owners, even though that story is in animated form here, and no real dogs are being harmed.
It turns out that the film stayed in theaters at least another week, so I could have (should have) maybe gone out to see "Avengers: Infinity War" on May 2, and held off on this one for another week. But too late now, the die is/was cast. And though I had no way to link to this back in early May, I knew I had some movies coming up with Liev Schreiber, the voice of one of the dogs, in them, so I could just sit on the review for a few weeks, and then a way to link to it would present itself naturally. So, if I've done this right, then Liev Schreiber carries over from "Goon: Last of the Enforcers" on Netflix, and I'm back on track.
THE PLOT: Set in Japan of the near future, a boy's odyssey in search of his lost dog.
AFTER: This film is part of that trend where the natural assumption is that humanity's bad record on the environment will just continue to get worse, and the one thing that everyone seems to agree on is that there will be trash everywhere. I think this may have started with "Wall-E" but it really picked up steam recently with "Blade Runner 2049" and then "Ready Player One".
I think this movie works best if you have a fascination with, or a least a familiarity with Wes Anderson's other movies. This felt a bit like if "The Darjeeling Limited" and "The Life Acquatic" got married and had a baby, and that baby grew up, moved to Japan and started championing animal rights. Does that make sense? God, this is just so quirky and so adorable, this film has about three times the "heart" of most average movies, and it just hits you right where you live, assuming you like dogs - and come on, who doesn't like dogs? Even though I'm more of a cat person, most dogs still love me, so I must be doing something right.
They didn't go crazy with the animation on the dogs, most of the time they're deadpan and stiff, but I thought that added to the comic timing. When they move, or attack, they REALLY move and attack, so that stands out more. Probably a lot of the standing still resulted from the laborious stop-motion process, but it's just as easy to think that the deadpan lack of movement was a stylistic choice.
This is set in a world where dogs talk, and they happen to talk in English, which makes things easier on the audience, and they sound like famous actors, which also helps. Whatever personality people like Bill Murray and Jeff Goldblum have in their voices would therefore, theoretically transfer over to the personalities of their dog characters. Meanwhile, the Japanese people speak in Japanese, and sometimes the film offers subtitles and sometimes the film offers translations, but other times it does not, but in those times we can probably infer the meaning of what's being said, so it all works out.
In this near-future society, both trash and disease are growing problems, and the dogs are blamed for spreading both "Dog Flu" and "Snout Fever", so the drastic solution is to exile the dogs to the Japanese island that also holds most of the country's trash. For various reasons, this is easier than curing the diseases, however probably more expensive in the long run - but really, the government plan is the result of one man (or one family's) hatred of dogs. That man happens to be the mayor of Megasaki City, and the first dog symbolically sent in to exile is Spots, the dog charged with taking care of the mayor's nephew, Atari. Atari had been in a train accident years before, which killed his parents, and place him in his uncle's care, and the uncle chose to put most of the burden of watching him on Spots.
Atari defies the conventions of society and flies a small plane to Trash Island, to search for Spots. After the plane crashes, he's tended to by a pack of wild dogs (four former pets and one long-time stray) who help him with the plan to search the island for Spots. (Admittedly, it's a little unclear how the dogs and boy form and agree on the plan, since they don't seem to speak each other's language.) But since four of the five dogs understand the unspoken master/assistant agreement between humans and canines, the majority tends to rule.
Yeah, that's the thing about these dogs in a Wes Anderson movie, they question themselves, spread strange rumors, and debate minute details about society and the meaning of life, just like the characters in a film like "The Royal Tenenbaums" or "Moonrise Kingdom" would. And all true dog lovers already do this, they give their dog voices, or imagine what they would sound like if they could talk. Right? I mean, my wife and I do that for our cats, so I just assume that dog lovers do the same thing.
There's a scientist who's convinced that he can cure both snout fever and the dog flu, if only he had a few more months. But of course the corrupt mayor will never give him that chance. There was a real danger of verging into some kind of Trump analogy here, with the government being both ineffectual AND having some kind of secret agenda, but considering how long it takes to make a stop-motion film, this film simply HAD to be created before Trump was elected. Same with the high-school girl who's convinced that a conspiracy is going on, and the Mayor is corrupt - it's very easy to see a reflection of the anti-gun protests going on at the high-school level right now, but it's got to be a coincidence, there's just no way the film could have directly reflected that.
As Atari and the five dogs cross the island, they're separated into two groups, and Atari journeys with Chief, the former stray dog who now is (slowly) learning how to bond with a human for the first time. When Atari throws a stick for him to fetch, he refuses to do so at first, and then when he reluctantly agrees to fetch the stick, it's only after a lengthy discussion about his long dissociation from society, his apprehension about taking a command from a master, and a definite objection to any possible interpretation that fetching the stick will put him into a continual subservient role. Just so we're all on the same page, you know, about what it means for this very verbose dog to fetch a stick. Classic.
I've got a NITPICK POINT about Atari finding his dog's cage, and opening it with his key, but I don't want to give away any spoilers here. I just don't think the key would have worked, based on other information we get later, but maybe, just maybe, the dogs are all smarter than we think and pulled a switch of their own, but I sort of doubt it. Maybe he had some kind of master key or skeleton key, but again, this also seems unlikely.
And yet, after everything else, this film is very, very Japanese. The sushi-making sequence (credited to someone I happen to know from my time working in the stop-motion world) is a thing of beauty, and highlights why if Wes Anderson could open some kind of water-theme park / sushi restaurant / pet adoption center in the real world, it would really be the most eclectic, adorable thing ever, and I would want to go to there. And Wes Anderson would oversee the entire operation from his personal treehouse, which somehow has an ENIAC computer in it. I don't know if this is how he really lives, but if he did, I wouldn't be all that surprised.
Also starring the voices of Bryan Cranston (last seen in "Drive"), Edward Norton (last seen in "Collateral Beauty"), Bill Murray (last seen in "Rock the Kasbah"), Jeff Goldblum (last seen in "Independence Day: Resurgence"), Bob Balaban (last seen in "Mascots"), Koyu Rankin, Kunichi Nomura, Greta Gerwig (last seen in "Jackie"), Frances McDormand (last seen in "North Country"), Scarlett Johansson (last seen in "Avengers: Infinity War"), Harvey Keitel (last seen in "Youth"), F. Murray Abraham (last seen in "The Bonfire of the Vanities"), Tilda Swinton (last seen in "War Machine"), Yoko Ono, Fisher Stevens (last seen in "Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds"), Courtney B. Vance (last seen in "Terminator Genisys"), Akira Ito, Ken Watanabe (also last seen in "Godzilla"), Frank Wood, Kara Hayward (last seen in "Manchester by the Sea"), Mari Natsuki, Akira Takayama, and vocal cameos from Roman Coppola, Anjelica Huston (last seen in "The Postman Always Rings Twice")
RATING: 7 out of 10 sumo wrestlers
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