When it comes to mankind’s first and most loyal companion, we have certainly not been parsimonious in terms of praise songs and movies. The movie Isle of Dogs, which once blew up on social media for sounding just like “I love dogs”, was of course expected to be another one of those sensational displays of the canine-human bond. For the same reason, I did not put much hope in this movie or the media representation of companion animals in general and simply watched out of appreciation for the famous director Wes Anderson. Yet barely 5 minutes into this movie, I had to swallow my own words. The film was not even close to an inspirational story based on how humans interact with their dogs. Isle of Dogs was a 90-minute sarcastic account of the desolate and conflicted existence of mankind based on an absurd story of an island of dogs.

Isle of Dogs 犬ヶ島 is a miniature stop-motion animation with a dystopian comedy-drama plot directed by Wes Anderson and released on March 23, 2018. Perhaps it is best that I make it clear that Isle of Dogs is not a movie about man-loving dogs. Throughout the entire film, dogs never shake off their role as victims. The film starts with Mayor Kobayashi announcing the banishment of all dogs to prevent a deadly zoonotic “snout fever”, sending hundreds and hundreds of dogs to a trash island outside of Megasaki city. Six months later, Mayor Kobayashi's adopted son, Atari Kobayashi, crashed his plane onto the island while looking for his old guard dog Spots. A pack of five dogs including our primary perspective provider Chief, helped Atari in his search throughout the island. At the same time, Atari’s disappearance led the entire Megasaki city to reevaluate the truth behind snout fever, forming a prop-dog rebellion organization. Following Anderson’s usual taste for a fairy tale-type ending, Isle of Dogs ended with the conspiracy of man-made snout fever exposed in public, Mayor Kobayashi overthrown by Atari, and all dogs including Spots returned to Megasaki.

The selling point of this film is the unique manipulation of a language barrier between humans and dogs that also applies to the audience. All dogs in the movie spoke fluent English while most content relative humans spoke a funky kind of Japanese¹. We relied on the occasional live translation from a foreign exchange student or the new interpreter to understand “human”. It almost appears as if Wes Anderson had the great aim of completely abolishing speciesism. A flashback in the early part of the film, showing when Atari met his bodyguard-dog Spots for the first time, shows Atari whispering into his earpiece to talk to Spots. All Spots and the audience can hear is a foreign language in inaudible murmurs, yet tears run down the dog’s face and he patiently responds with “I can hear you master Atari. I can hear you. I can hear you. I can hear you…”. We have no idea what the boy could be saying but we can feel the unwavering love and the confirmation Spots showed in return to Atari’s whisper. Language helps us see reasons in these animals and acknowledge that they are our equals, if not more capable.

The depiction of the canine-human relationship would certainly not be the main focus in the movie, and in a sense deviate from the purpose of the film. Yet it had become a chronic academic obsession of mine to evaluate animal-related films through an animal science lens. Dorky and tormenting of me, yes. But I do find the details of Isle of Dogs extremely applicable in real life and likely very close to what my ethics professor would have called “biblically accurate” regarding animal welfare. Isle of Dogs did not glorify the relationship between dogs and humans and the root of many animal-related issues was unveiled in this seemingly happy ending. Early in the movie, the main pack of dogs struggles to adjust to banished life without the shelter and care of humans. They have to fight for rotten food and tear each other’s ears off, yet all the previous house dogs keep their collars and spend their time reminiscing over their masters and their past domesticated life. It isn’t easy to process the idea that pets and service dogs kept for human benefit, emotionally and physically, were stripped of their independence so they could be more family-friendly. When Chief, the only stray dog in the pack, reveals that he once bit his young owner and “almost chewed his hand off” before becoming a stray, the camera pulls in at the dog’s face, and the sky darkens. “Why did I do that? To this day I have no idea. I guess he scared me. I bite.” Anderson basically squeezed our cheeks and forced us to face that impactful quote and acknowledge the irony in what we label as a “violent dog.” No matter how pretty we decorate the truth to be, a dependent survivor with strong canine instincts will not be a good companion animal. I will always be impressed with Isle of Dogs for being brutally direct in getting this message across.

The main story is perhaps a bit of child's play, a 14-year-old hero overthrowing a group of evil politicians with an army of dogs. Yet the certain type of heroism Wes Anderson captures in his motion reflects pride and selfishness, an unshakable feature of humans in comparison to the morals of dogs. When Atari thought his own dog Spots had died, he did not hesitate to pick up fixing his plane and plan his return to Megasaki. It was as if the tragedy on the trash island didn’t matter anymore, and the dogs who unconditionally fended for him were not of any importance. He only once again started bonding with the dog when he found out that Spots was actually still alive, and that he needed their help. The Megasaki city is lined with evidence of dog treats and dog shampoo advertisements highlighting the citizens who once loved their dogs, yet it took them 6 months to realize it was unfair for their pets to be banished to an uninhabitable island. The corrupted politicians whom the film refers to as the “Cat Loving Kobayashi Dynasty” throw their cat right off their lap after an interview, as if the involvement of cats in their name was just an excuse to hate all the dogs. Perhaps all the dogs, cats, and animal lives in the film are just gambling chips, measurements for how far mankind can fall.

One of the co-producers Alexandre Desplat brought up in an interview that Isle of Dogs “could have gone to being again, classical symphonic emotional, very somatic, and maybe over sentimental [like what you see] in many animation movies or … maybe the audience can feel the emotions without us pushing them to”. As Desplat had said, Anderson placed very little emphasis on the emotional depiction in Isle of Dogs and spent a compulsive amount of effort in perfecting the details, the hints, and the metaphors. The large Kobayashi headshot poster all over the city wall might very well be a reference to the infamous Big Brother propaganda. The political tide in the movie also instantaneously shifts when the 12-year-old Atari stands on the election stage with a probe still stuck in his skull and randomly delivers a Haiku. When Atari successfully inherits the position of Mayor, we see a large statue of Spots in his cage built and placed in the center of the city while Spots itself lives in a shrine hidden underneath. To strengthen the new Kobayashi regime, Spots needed to be known as the hero who sacrificed in the rebellion and was arranged to disappear from public sight. It was a sarcastic remark about the blind trust people have in any type of governmental reform, and for this film, definitely the center of a Sherbet Lemon.

The entire movie in general criticizes the corrupted government of Japan but makes a deeper point by placing an American exchange student named Walker as the leader of the pro-dog organization. She is deeply infatuated with the role of a reporter and a conspiracist, to the point that she has more than once steered off the moral compass. The pro-dog activists did not once mention their love for dogs, nor did they have basic respect for life, since their final solution to the Kobayashi policy was to hack the wasabi gas² system and pump it right into the gas masks of the extermination team. They are just obsessed with rebelling against Mayor Kobayashi and proving themselves to be the smarter and better kind of people. The most memorable and evidential scene would likely be when Walker visited the assistant scientist Yoko Ono after the assassination of Professor Watanabe, who died trying to cure snout fever. Walker introduces herself and her purpose of visit with a strong and demanding attitude, smashing cups and grabbing the grieving woman by her collar when she can’t get the information she wants. Now she would not be yelling “I need to prove my conspiracy theory! Pull yourself together and act like a scientist!” if her character was built to represent justice and sympathy.

Perhaps it's just my own fascination with the Wes Anderson recipe, but it almost feels unnecessary for me to comment on his legendary style. The movie carried out Anderson's usual implementation of visual balance and color saturation so that each frame is uniquely beautiful and sensual. The film uses the traditional concept of Japanese ukiyo-e, samurai, and taiko drumming to pack the movie with dazzling elements. Combined with the unfavorable portrayal of the Japanese government, many believe Anderson was rather racist against Japanese stereotypes, but I lean towards the opinion that his choices are purely aesthetic. The cherry on top goes to the consistent thumping we hear throughout the soundtrack; it conveys urgency and strings the audience’s heartbeat with the flow of the film. And when the song “I Won’t Hurt You” by The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band was inserted into the pictures, it was seamlessly perfect. Never could I have ever imagined how much love a stray dog must have felt when he found his new purpose by a young boy’s side, and never could I have ever imagined that it could all be expressed with the right song.

I hold Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs without reservation as the best stop animation movie in my heart. The film reminds us that justice in politics is just as fleeting as the Sakura in Atari's Haiku. At the same time that Isle of Dogs spilled bile over me with criticisms of our so-called liberty and humanity, it also invokes the warmest and fuzziest feeling when it shows us how our dogs are on our side. If you have dogs, maybe by the movie's end, you’ll be rushing home from the theater to tell them how much you cherish them.