Wes Anderson’s stop-motion animated comedy arrives in a new edition from Criterion
Wes Anderson is a quintessentially American filmmaker, but as his filmography grows, it’s increasingly apparent that his films explore the world with prominent settings in different countries and locations, both real and imagined, throughout the globe.
Like The Darjeeling Limited, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and The French Dispatch (among others), Anderson’s 2018 stop-motion animated film Isle of Dogs is informed by its international location: a fictionalized version of Japan set in the near future, allowing him to steep in the rich Japanese culture but also introduce his own ideas and stylization.
The film imagines a future in which a manufactured epidemic, the creation of a dog-hating regime, causes all dogs in the city of Megasaski to be rounded up and shipped off to the city’s offshore dump: Trash Island. A defiant boy named Atari pilots a small plane onto the island in search of his own beloved dog Spots, meeting the local alpha pack and kicking off an interspecies adventure.
The film makes the ingenious and unique choice of having Japanese human dialogue unsubtitled, while the many dogs are voice in English by an all-star cast of familiar voices (Bryan Cranston, Bill Murray, Liev Schreiber, Edward Norton, Bob Balaban, Jeff Goldblum, Scarlet Johansson, F. Murray Abraham, Tilda Swinton, etc), most of whom are recurring members of Anderson’s troupe of players.
It’s a mechanism that distinctly puts us in the dogs’ eye view; Anyone who doesn’t speak Japanese is therefore encouraged to understand Atari and other Japanese characters not by their words, but by their tonality and body language, much in the same way a dog would understand a human.
While Atari searches for his beloved Spots, much of the film’s warmth comes from the unlikely relationship that develops with Chief (Cranston), the human-suspicious alpha who initially wants nothing to do with him. Meanwhile, Atari’s quest inspires a revolution on the mainland, led by a spunky American exchange student named Tracy Walker (Greta Gerwig), and her journalism club.
Isle of Dogs is one of Anderson’s weirder films, but in a very pleasing way. The quirky animation is funny and detailed, and the world that these characters inhabit is a sprawling and varied one – environments include both gorgeous Japanese architecture that lends well to Anderson’s visual style, as well as vast expanses of the various environs, both natural and built of rubbish, refuse, and machinery that make up Trash Island.
The Package
Isle of Dogs is hitting standalone 4K UHD and standard Blu-ray alongside the “Wes Anderson Archive”, a huge new 4K set celebrating the director’s first ten feature films.
When it comes to any crispy new video technologies (first HD, then 3D, and now UHD), the films that always excite me most to see in a new format are stop motion animation. The tactile and detailed worlds of stop-motion lend themselves so beautifully to greater capabilities of enhanced detail, more so, in my opinion, than any other medium or genre. So while it’s exciting to get so much of Anderson’s catalogue on 4K Blu, visually it’s Fantastic Mr. Fox and Isle of Dogs which I find the most visually enticing upgrades.
Isle of Dogs can be purchased individually, or as part of Criterion’s massive Wes Anderson Archive.
Special Features and Extras:
Criterion Edition Extras:
- Feature Commentary by Wes Anderson and Jeff Goldblum
- Storyboard Animatic (1:29:30) – A full-length animatic of the entire film as an animated storyboard, with soundtrack. It’s a unique way to experience the film in a way that shows its creative process.
- The Visual Comedy of Isle of Dogs (10:49) – A wonderful look at Anderson’s style and visual humor. There’s a great analysis made here, on how Anderson’s work in animation changed his filmmaking, opening up his live action films to greater artifice and silliness.
- Jupiter in the Studio (16 :58) – Join F. Murray Abraham and the crew as they work with his character
- Meet the Crew (20:56) – Interviews with Animation director Mark Waring, Co-production Designer Paul Harrod, Head of Puppets Dept Andy Gent, Director of Photography Tristan Oliver
- Voices of the Hero Pack (7:32) – some time in the recording booth with Bill Murray, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, and Bob Balaban, along with Wes Anderson. A glimpse into the actors’ process, trying out varied lines and readings.
- Visual Effects Breakdowns (4:54) – Super effective in showing how the movie is visually composed. Various elements are individually animated and seamlessly composited into the film.
- Animation Tests (4:08) – Again, some really amazing stuff here. For example, a showing of several different “fire tests” depicting flames made of various materials, some of which look a lot better than others.
- Time-lapse (3:57) – A fascinating collection of behind-the-scenes time-lapses showing te animation slowly being made. Culminates in a time-lapse centered on the sushi-cutting scene, showing over 1 month’s worth of work, condensed to a little over a minute.
Additional Legacy Extras:
- Making Of: Animators (3:40)
- Cast Interviews (5:08)
- Making Of: Puppets (4:03)
- An Ode to Dogs on Set (2:00)
- Making a World: Megasaki City and Trash Island (2:59)
- Making a World: Weather and Elements (3:04)
- Gallery: Actors and their Puppets (0:49)
- Trailer (2:38)
A/V Out.
Get it at Amazon: Buy Isle of Dogs [Criterion 4K UHD] | [Criterion Blu-ray]
Or as part of the the [Wes Anderson Archive 4K UHD]
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