![]() ![]() As the Los Angeles Times’s Justin Chang put it in his review of the movie, “Every one of Anderson’s films is an act of imaginative plundering-a crazy-quilt of popular touchstones and personal influences, tailored to a specific milieu.” But it’s also worth moving beyond the question of appropriation and considering Isle of Dogs’s use of Japan as a backdrop. Why then does Isle of Dogs take place in Japan -or in a land that gestures at Japan via curated aesthetic flourishes and references? Some have rightly pointed out that this decision is in line with the director’s style. But even given this leeway, Anderson’s Megasaki at times slides dangerously close to tokenism, and often fails to truly bring to mind the country the director claims to invoke (a point I’ll return to in a moment).Īmerican Meritocracy Is Killing Youth Sports Derek Thompson ![]() Critics and viewers might argue that this invented city, which exists in a parallel universe 20 years in the future, eases the story’s burden of faithfully representing Japan. The fictional metropolis of Megasaki is the fantastical setting for this tale about a boy searching for his dog, who has been exiled with all other canines to an island made of trash. That’s because Anderson’s movie, despite featuring Japanese voice actors and iconography, isn’t really about the East Asian nation. It is also the only scene in Isle of Dogs that needs to be set in Japan. This beautifully executed sequence is identical to the process so many sushi shokunin undertake, as they stand behind counters performing for hungry audiences. The chef dots vivid-green wasabi on each slice of octopus, arranging the sushi carefully in a lacquered bento box. A wriggling octopus leg is held deftly, cut into neat rectangles, and pressed onto handfuls of vinegar rice. In a bird’s-eye shot, we see the chef’s hands pin a still-living fish, chop off its head and tail, set it to the side in a shallow bowl, and fillet the carcass. One of the best sequences in Wes Anderson’s new stop-motion film, Isle of Dogs, is of a sushi chef preparing a boxed lunch. ![]()
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