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April 09, 2018 - Image 6

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The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Monday, April 9, 2018 — 6A

Anderson wins best in
show with ‘Isle of Dogs’

Few modern directors have

a cinematic style as unique,
idiosyncratic and identifiable
as that of Wes Anderson (“The
Grand Budapest Hotel”). It’s for
this reason that the director’s
name is so frequently used as
an adjective, with each new film
hailed as the most
“Wes
Anderson”

Wes Anderson film
yet, and inspecting
his
filmography,

it’s not hard to
see why. In each
of his films, the
audience explores
a wide array of
gorgeously crafted,
meticulously
detailed settings,
almost always carrying with
them
a
distinctly
vintage

feel. From the purposefully
baroque “The Grand Budapest
Hotel” to the wistful “Moonrise
Kingdom,” all of Anderson’s
films seem to carry with them
echoes of the past, like a story
about some long-gone relative
passed down by one’s parents.
Anderson has seemed, to many,
to be unwaveringly true to a
singular artistic vision.

However, with the addition of

his latest release, “Isle of Dogs,”
it seems that old dogs truly can
learn new tricks. Set in the near
future, the film tells the story
of Atari (Koyu
Rankin,
“Juken”),

a young boy separated from
his dog Spots (Liev Schreiber,
“Ray Donovan”) when Mayor
Kobayashi (Kunichi Nomura,
“The Grand Budapest Hotel”) of
Megasaki City decrees that all
dogs must be banished to Trash
Island, a desolate, rat-infested
pile of garbage off the coast of
mainland Japan. Leaving the
city
behind,
Atari
comes
to
Trash

Island hoping to reunite with
his furry companion. The film’s
futuristic landscape, infused
with homages to Japanese
culture, is a complete departure
from anything Anderson has
done before. Gone are the
picturesque hotels in the Alps
and the quaint New-England
summer camps. Trash Island,

where the majority of the film
is set, is disgusting. Infested
with rats and barely vegetated,
the film’s color palette consists
predominantly of reds, greys
and blacks. The world of “Isle
of Dogs” is one overrun with
mankind’s greed, corruption
and apathy. It should serve,
then, as the ultimate proof
of Anderson’s ability that he
still manages to make this film

beautiful.

That
very

juxtaposition
of
beauty
and

sadness is part of
what makes all of
Anderson’s films
so
enthralling.

Where “Isle of
Dogs” sets itself
apart, however, is
the scope. Many
of
Anderson’s

characters have dealt with
immense personal pains, such
as the grieving brothers from
“The Darjeeling Limited,” but
rarely
are
these
struggles

extrapolated into the context
of larger social systems. “Isle
of Dogs” features its share of
touching personal struggles,
but at its core is a film that
laments
mankind’s
cruelty
while

simultaneously celebrating its
capacity for good. It examines
the personal struggles of people
(and dogs) caught up in large,
amoral systems. It’s poignant
commentary, and one can’t help
but see vestiges of Megasaki
realized in our own society, one
increasingly plagued by greed,
pollution and xenophobia.

Captured via stop-motion

animation — Anderson’s second
full venture in the medium
following
2009’s
“Fantastic

Mr. Fox” — with a splash of
traditional 2D animation, the
film is an absolute labor of love
from the first frame to the end
credits. It’s such an impressive
testament
to
Anderson’s

ongoing desire to grow as a
filmmaker, and is evident in
the pure ingenuity that goes
into every scene. He never
cuts corners, often introducing
breathtakingly
intricate

backgrounds and settings only
to use them for a single scene,
sometimes as brief as a few

seconds. It’s not all set pieces
either; the film’s characters are
all animated in such immense
detail. The way Anderson has
animated
watering,
tearful

eyes in the film is particularly
impressive and is sure to evoke
some sniffles from the audience.

Anderson begins the film

with a disclaimer informing the
audience that all characters will
speak in their native languages,
and that “All barks have been
rendered into English.” That
is to say, the film’s Japanese
characters will go unsubtitled.
It’s a curious decision to make,
and one that’s stirred some
controversy, with Anderson’s
harshest critics calling it a way
to silence Japanese people in
a film that borrows so heavily
from their culture. Supporters
of Anderson, meanwhile, call
it nothing more than a unique
design choice for the film, and
cite the expansive list of notable
Japanese talents involved in the
film, including voice cameos
from Ken Watanabe (“Rage”),
Yojiro Noda (lead singer of
the popular Japanese band
Radwimps) and Yoko Ono. The
film feels almost like a sort of
cultural mishmash, blending a
plethora of artistic and cultural
influences and perspectives.
Audiences will have to decide
for themselves if this blending
more closely resembles cross-
pollination or bastardization.

A technical marvel and a clear

labor of love, “Isle of Dogs” is a
worthy installment in the ever-
growing Wes Anderson canon.
The film challenges our notions
of mainstream animated feature
films, which have been hard-
pressed to gain recognition as
anything more than children’s
movies. Significantly darker
than “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” which
was marketed as a family movie,
“Isle of Dogs” has a lot to show
its audience, and never feels
simplified or euphemistic. You
wouldn’t expect it from an
outlandish film about animated
dogs, but “Isle of Dogs” may
be one of Anderson’s most
impressive
and
poignant

offerings to date. The director
continues to cement himself as
a prolific auteur who, after 20
years, still hasn’t peaked.

MAX MICHALSKY

Daily Arts Writer

FOX SEARCHLIGHT

“Isle of Dogs”

State Theater

Fox Searchlight

Pictures

FILM REVIEW

Few works of art can sustain

an audience’s focus for three
and a half hours. It’s hard to ask
people to walk into the theater
at 7:30 p.m. on a Thursday and
leave at 11:00 p.m.

Yet, the School of Music,

Theatre
&
Dance’s
recent

production of Tony Kushner’s
“Angels in America Part I:
Millennium
Approaches”

managed to do this and more.
It was a captivating story of gay
life in the ’80s in Manhattan,
and while many of the cultural
references were dated, the
meaning and significance of
the work remain relevant in the
current cultural and political
climate.

The play focuses on three

groups of characters and the
interactions between them.
First is Louis Ironson and his
AIDS-stricken
lover
Prior
Walter.

As Prior’s sickness progresses,
Louis struggles to cope. Next is
Mormon law clerk Joe Pitt and

his anxious, pill-addicted wife
Harper Pitt. The Pitts’ struggle
to understand Joe’s closeted
gay
identity,
especially
in

regard to their strict religious
beliefs. Lastly, the story follows
closeted lawyer Roy Cohn as
he faces threats of disbarment
from the New York Bar, a
character who is loosely based
on the historical figure. Cohn
also faces a sudden diagnosis
with AIDS and a perpetual
denial of the disease that he
faces.

Though the subject matter

is incredibly serious, the play
contains many brief moments
of humor. They form a bulwark
against
the
dark
subject

matter as a whole, allowing the
audience to laugh at moments
when tears might be more
appropriate.
At
one
point

during Prior’s hospitalization
scene, I found myself laughing
as a defense mechanism against
the terrible anguish that I knew
the characters on stage must
have been facing.

Despite my great attempts,

it also became hard to separate
the current political overtones
surrounding the play from the
play itself. Cohn, after all, was an
early mentor for Donald Trump.

Trump learned his strategy
of aggressive litigation from
Cohn during his legal spat with
the Justice Department over
alleged fair housing violations
in his New York properties. It
was easy to see echoes of Trump

in Cohn and Cohn in Trump. At
one point, Cohn is visited by the
ghost of Ethel Rosenberg; the
aggressive, heartless nature of
legal legacy was exposed to the
audience in his recollections
of successfully prosecuting the
ghost.

As a relic of the ’80s, the

play serves as a reminder
of the negative side of the

Reagan years. The closeted
nature of gay life in the ’80s,
for example, is hard to fully
contemplate in relation to our
increasingly accepting society.
The fears of the AIDS epidemic
and the allegedly indifferent
government response to it also
feature prominently into the

play’s overall plot.

At its core, however, the

play is about the morally and
ethically
bankrupt
makeup

of American society. As Louis
proclaims in act three, “There
are no angels in America, no
spiritual past, no racial past,
there’s only the political.”
America, Kushner argues, is an
ever-changing power struggle
between various groups and
individuals. It lacks a central
theme or overarching purpose.

The play ends with Prior

being visited by an angel. As
Prior recoils in awe and terror,
the angel proclaims that Prior
is a prophet and that the “Great
Work begins.” While the staging
throughout
the
production

had been minimal and bare, it
was this image of a suspended
angel flapping two floor-to-
ceiling wings over the bed of
the terrified Prior that stuck
with me as I left the theater.
It was stunningly beautiful,
and despite the three hours
that I had already spent in the
theater, I felt myself wishing for
more.

The
minimal
staging
matched

the small cast; the play featured
only eight actors and one
offstage percussionist. Every
member of the cast performed
brilliantly,
many
adopting

multiple roles. One actress, for
example, played Joe’s mother,
the Rabbi, Henry and Ethel
Rosenberg. Another played The
Angel,
Emily,
Sister
Ella
Chapter

and A Homeless Woman.

This was a reminder of the

power of theater in its simplest
form. This was theater stripped
of all glitter and glamour; it
was theater at its simplest,
and theater at its best. It was
long,
meandering
and
yet

frighteningly powerful. It was a
chilling statement on the very
makeup of American society, a
complex,
thought-provoking

and
haunting
depiction
of

the failures of contemporary
American society.

Ultimately, the work’s central

tenet is that there is no central
tenet of contemporary society.
Kushner suggests the human
condition to be an endless
power struggle in a moral
vacuum, a harsh fight between
progressive and reactionary
forces in absence of any guiding
beliefs.

SAMMY SUSSMAN

Daily Arts Writer

COURTESY OF KYLE PRUE

COMMUNITY CULTURE REVIEW

COURTESY OF KYLE PRUE

‘Angels in America’ is a
haunting look at society

As a relic of
the ’80s, the

play serves as a
reminder of the
negative side of
the Reagan years

This was theater

stripped of

all glitter and
glamour; it was

theater at its
simplest, and

theater at its best

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