{"id":429332,"date":"2018-06-08T13:02:19","date_gmt":"2018-06-08T13:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/essaypaper.org\/isle-of-dogs-film-review-samples\/"},"modified":"2018-10-24T09:05:10","modified_gmt":"2018-10-24T09:05:10","slug":"isle-of-dogs-film-review-samples","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/isle-of-dogs-film-review-samples\/","title":{"rendered":"Isle of Dogs : Film Review Samples"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I do not like cartoons. When I was a child, I preferred reading and drawing to watching television, cartoons included\u2013which makes the fact that I am a movie reviewer somewhat ironic. Anyways, cartoons always felt boring to me: unrealistic colorful characters talking and acting like real people looked too far-fetched to relax and enjoy. Be it the hysterical madness of old Looney Tunes, Disney\u2019s cheesy fairy tales, or Pixar\u2019s 3D family movies, to me it is all the same. I guess you can picture me as an arrogant, heartless cartoon hater. Which I am not, but whatever.<\/p>\n

Considering all this, imagine my own surprise when I ran across an animated picture I liked. I am an old and devoted fan of Wes Anderson\u2019s talent\u2013you must know him by such movies as \u201cThe Grand Budapest Hotel,\u201d \u201cMoonrise Kingdom,\u201d or \u201cThe Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou\u201d (my personal favorite). I always enjoyed the camerawork and coloring in Anderson\u2019s movies\u2013as well as the casts, the slight absurdity of stories and characters, and the overall sensation of tragedy and comedy blending together. When I found out that Wes Anderson directed and wrote the screenplay for the cartoon named \u201cIsle of Dogs,\u201d I felt a strange amalgam of doom and enthusiasm. I thought, \u201cOkay, I am not a dog lover, cartoons are boring\u2026but damn, it\u2019s Wes Anderson! It cannot be bad.\u201d <\/p>\n

And I was right. I absolutely loved \u201cIsle of Dogs,\u201d every aspect of it. <\/p>\n

To start with, it is not a typical cartoon. If it was yet another 3D, sugary animation, I swear to God I would never watch it. But \u201cIsle of Dogs\u201d is a film created with the unusual stop-motion technique. Basically, you take a puppet, place it into a setting, and take a shot with a camera. Then you move a puppet a little bit and take another shot. This way, one slight change after another, you make a sequence of photographs which altogether convey the puppet\u2019s \u201cmotion.\u201d Stop-motion is an old-school technique and requires a lot of resources, time, and effort\u2013which is why, I guess, no one uses it anymore. This is also why in 2018, stop-motion looks charming. <\/p>\n

In other words, \u201cIsle of Dogs\u201d is a completely handmade cartoon. Is there anything more stunning than that in cinema in the age of VR and 3D?<\/p>\n

The story is surprisingly noir, although not absurd. In the not-so-distant future, a dog-flu virus spreads across the city of Megasaki, Japan. The city\u2019s mayor Kobayashi\u2013whose portraits will definitely remind you of the \u201cBig Brother is Watching You\u201d posters\u2013orders to send all dogs to Trash Island. To make an example, the first dog to be exiled is Kobayashi\u2019s dog Spots. <\/p>\n

Kobayashi has a foster child, Atari\u2013a boy with a stubborn and strong-willed character. It turns out that Spots was Atari\u2019s bodyguard dog, and in order to find him, Atari hijacks a plane and sets off to Trash Island. <\/p>\n

This is as far as I can go without spoiling the pleasure of you watching \u201cIsle of Dogs\u201d on your own. From now on, I will only comment on the movie\u2019s features and nuances.<\/p>\n

And there are plenty. I liked that almost all the characters but dogs speak in Japanese. The voiceover translation was provided only when it was necessary for understanding the plot. Other than that, you can only guess what the characters are talking about. And I think this is a perfect solution for the movie that tells the story from the perspective of dogs. Can dogs really understand what people are saying to them? Doubtfully. Except several commands they are specifically taught to understand, dogs can only guess approximately what humans want from them. <\/p>\n

And so did the audience when watching the \u201cIsle of Dogs.\u201d There were multiple times when I found myself wondering what the human characters in the movie were saying judging by their intonations, facial expressions, and behaviors. Just like a dog probably would! To me, this is an ingenious way to create the sense of immersion, and to make the audience feel for the main characters.<\/p>\n

Which are, by the way, all dogs. There is Atari, of course, and some other characters, but the main focus is put on the stray dog named Chief, and his company of dogs: King, Rex, Boss, and Duke. All outcasts from Megasaki, they find Atari when his plane crashes on Trash Island, and help him in his quest to find Spots. Personally I found Chief to be the most dramatic character of all. To be honest, sometimes I could not distinguish between Rex, Duke, and King\u2013but Chief was always in the center of my attention. <\/p>\n

And it is not because of the voice acting. On the contrary, it was beautiful: Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, and Bob Balaban did a great job breathing life into \u201ctheir\u201d dogs. It is just that I did not find their characters as distinctive and vivid as Chief. His story is somewhat dark, even noir: when he reveals how he was exiled from Megasaki, you can almost picture him turning on his Macintosh and smoking a cigarette in Humphrey Bogart\u2019s manner. There is a love story (of course), there is dramatic tension, a fight for justice, and revelations in the end.<\/p>\n

There is some of distinctive Anderson\u2019s camerawork: dramatic juxtapositions of the front and the background, colorful accents. The picture is almost geometrically proportionate. Sometimes it felt like each frame was built according to the Golden Ratio. Combined with the unique animation originating from stop-motion, all this created a charming visual atmosphere, making you feel like you are at home during the rainy evening, watching your children play with dolls under the lampshade. <\/p>\n

The sound design and music were awesome too: traditional Japanese melodies and energetic drums made me feel like I was watching Akira Kurosawa\u2019s \u201cSeven Samurai.\u201d It emphasized the drama, and at the same time strengthened the comical effect. Such serious music for puppet action! It sounded almost ridiculous, but never out of place.<\/p>\n

Overall, I can say now that the \u201cIsle of Dogs\u201d has probably become the first cartoon in my life that I truly liked. I admit that I would not have watched it if Wes Anderson\u2019s name was not on it, but I am glad I did. The \u201cIsle of Dogs\u201d is a fine example of taste, talent, and hard work put together. A great movie to watch on your own or with your family. <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n\t<\/p>\n

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I do not like cartoons. When I was a child, I preferred reading and drawing to watching television, cartoons included\u2013which makes the fact that I am a movie reviewer somewhat ironic. Anyways, cartoons always felt boring to me: unrealistic colorful Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23250,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,17,40,41,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-429332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-articles-assignment-help","category-academic-assignment-help","category-academic-assignments","category-academic-essay-writing-uk","category-academic-essays-help"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}