Isle of  Dogs is one of Wes Anderson’s most recent creations, and just like the rest of his filmography, the movie is quite hard to “get a grip” on. I don’t mean this in the sense that it’s hard to obtain, nor that it’s hard to understand, but simply that brining the experience the movie conveys into reality through words could be a bit of a challenge. Nonetheless, here we are.

The most glaring thought that stuck in my mind after viewing Isle of Dogs has to be how it perfectly achieved the feeling of being a post card. Just like those small paper cards, Isle of Dogs leaves you with a short and brief experience of what it’s like to be somewhere else, in another time, in another culture. Just like how a perfect post card could transport you to Paris for just a brief moment as you gaze at the Eiffel Tower, or perhaps the streets of London with Big Ben looming over you, Wes Anderson crafted Isle of Dogs in such a genuine and mindful way that it truly feels like you are transported to Japan for its entire 105 minute runtime. The environments, crafted in clay and other craft material, either feels crazily real or artistically stylized.  The music is only that of classic Japanese instruments, which I must add is done quite well. Perhaps the most important choice of cultural respect and representation has to be the decision to have all humans speaking Japanese, while the dogs speak English.

This leads into my next biggest takeaway, that being how the movie uses dogs as  a device to convey its themes. The first thing that stood out to me was how interesting how a decision it was to flip the regular dichotomy of humans generally being used as a device to allow audiences to better connect to the world around them, be it through emotion attachment or familiarity. Instead, with an entire story based around humans that you can not only understand (unless the movie wants you to, through in-universe translation or subtitles) but have issues relating to, the main tool of familiarity for the audience in this world are the dogs. We can not just understand the dogs through their language, but many of the tropes and traditions these characters follow are familiar to anyone who as consumed western media before, even down to being named things like “Spots”, “Duke”, and “Boss”. It is through these dogs, who form connections to characters neither they nor us can fully understand through speech, that we get lead through this wonderful world that Wes Anderson crafted and develop understandings and appreciations for it. It is also through these dogs that we see heavy issues like the rise of nationalism, government corruption, poverty and prejudice, and even genocide conveyed through, offering not just immediate emotional reactions to their danger (because who doesn’t love dogs?) but approachable and palatable exposure to these heavy subjects, allowing the audience to be taught even when they don’t know they’re learning.

All in all, I would recommend this movie. I wouldn’t say that it’s groundbreaking, nor would I say life changing, but instead I would say it’s disjointed. What makes this movie magical is that there are many moving pieces, many conflicting artistic ideas and concepts, and by the end of the movie they all seem to magically “click” together. I wouldn’t even say this movie will make you feel intense emotion or have a profound revelation. Instead, Isle of Dogs will give you an experience, using every tool that it has (plot, design, stop motion animation, music,  language) to try and transport you somewhere else during the entire time it has you. If you have Disney+, give it a shot.