Wes Anderson’s Dog Tale
The Isle of Dogs is an Animated Odyssey
One of the most anticipated films of 2018 is Wes Anderson‘s anime-style adventure, The Isle of Dogs. Anderson regulars Bill Murray, Ed Norton, and Bob Balaban are joined by Bryan Cranston and Jeff Goldblum in this thought-provoking story set in Japan in the not-so-distant future.
The canine population has grown beyond capacity so when a dog flu hits, the Mayor banishes the intellectually superior creatures to a remote trash island—renamed The Isle of Dogs—to survive on their own. When an industrious boy named Atari (Koyu Rankin) lands on the island in search of his lost pooch Spots (Liev Scheiber), the group goes on an odyssey of epic proportions to find him.
Featuring other notable names like Greta Gerwig, Scarlett Johansson, Cate Blanchett, and Courtney B. Vance, the film is already set to open the prestigious Berlin Film Festival in February. In January, the director will debut Isle of Dogs Behind the Scenes (in Virtual Reality) at the Sundance Film Festival. The experience is meant to take the viewer inside the world of the “actors” in the film as if you’re on the set with the animated characters. Leave it to Wes Anderson to not only create such an imaginative, visually stimulating film but to allow the audience to come “face to face” with the cast of dogs.
Like all of Anderson’s films, The Isle of Dogs promises to entertain as well as make you think about the world in which we live. If only Anderson were art directing the entire planet with his quirky, endearing style.
