At the Metropolitan Museum this week it was easy to forget that Wes Anderson’s brilliant new movie, Isle of Dogs, is animated. Oracle, a pint-sized pug, announces snow is on the way, and she was right. New York was bracing for another blizzard, its fourth of the season. That’s a tall blond woman, you think looking at the adorable Oracle situated as all the dogs are, on a junk heap; she’s voiced by Tilda Swinton. She and co-stars including Anderson regulars Jason Schwartzman who also worked on the script, Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, Greta Gerwig, Frances McDormand, and a young find, Koyu Rankin, who plays the lead boy, all joined the incredible art team for the movie’s grand premiere to create this Japanese themed confection of imperiled canines in stop-motion animation.

When we meet the heroic dog pack, it is already exiled to a toxic island dump after propaganda against dogs is legislated by what looks like cat loving Japanese officials. Atari, a 12-year old boy, sets out to find his pet. Simple story. But the visuals, so rich in detail, sight and verbal gags, dazzle. Even if you’ve seen Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox or loved his Grand Budapest Hotel (not an animated film but similarly smart and crafted), Isle of Dogs feels fresh. You learn to make sushi, elude robots, and perform an organ transplant. Underscoring the action is Alexandre Desplat’s music, and taiko drums.

The drums, live, greeted guests for the sushi dinner in the museum’s grand entranceway. Jason Schwartzman spoke about the writing, a six-year process. He’d have to stop everything and fly to Paris periodically, to write with Wes, where he lives. Bill Murray joined in the drumming, so physical his whole body was into it while Willem Dafoe, Norman Reedus, Mickey Sumner, Joel Coen, James Ivory, Tilda Swinton, Alessandro Nivola, and many others looked on. This is young Koyu Rankin’s first movie. A resident of Vancouver, he is half Asian and speaks only Japanese in the film. His lead role in this movie took only two days to record.

Frances McDormand, the voice of an interpreter and human, huddled with Bob Balaban, “King,” one of the pack, and in true form griped, “Why wasn’t a woman in the dog pack? I could easily have been a dog,” she snarled.

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura