Wes Anderson's films are always about a few serious, planned people doing something a child would imagine. Isle of Dogs is a little different, because in addition to people planning, there are dogs: the mayor's new policy isolates the dogs on an island where garbage is stacked and disposed of, while the mayor's distant cousin takes a risk He came to the island to find his loyal dog who was taken away, so he found the missing dog with the help of several dogs; at the same time, an American student led Japanese students to organize against the mayor dog eradication policy. The dog in the film has the same thinking ability as a human except for the difference in appearance and human. The director even creatively arranges for the dogs and (mostly) people to speak different languages: the dogs speak English and the people Japanese. Such an arrangement deepens their sense of substitution for dogs for English-speaking audiences.
Here comes the problem: the dog that the audience recognizes and sympathizes with has wisdom that is not inferior to that of humans, but the ultimate goal is to return to the human master and continue to serve them, that is to say, willing to act as a servant. The dogs are smart and cute, and finally won the praise of most people in the movie, but there is something wrong with this recognition for the audience: Does the audience want to support them to go back as slaves? Of course, based on their own experience as human beings, it is difficult for the audience to get rid of their understanding of the relationship between humans and dogs: no matter how much they love dogs, the duty of dogs is to serve their masters after all. Therefore, the so-called "dog rights" that the group of students in the film strived for for dogs is nothing but the right of dogs to serve human beings. This is what the director wants the audience to agree with.
The film also specially arranges a dog as a negative example, showing his series of changes from the beginning of opposing helping the boy to find the loyal dog, gradually understanding and sympathizing with the boy during the adventure, and finally surrendering to the boy. Judging from his attitude at the beginning, it seems that as a stray dog, he has a natural hostility to humans, and he does not agree with the domestic dog's point of view. It was only later that he found out that his hostility to humans was just a defense mechanism caused by being unfamiliar with strangers. . After all, doesn't he also love the delicacies that humans give him? After thinking about it like this, his psychological barrier was immediately broken, and the final recruiting was logical. Love and understanding triumph over everything.
But such counter-thinking offers an interesting reading: Could it be wrong that the dog resisted the idea of humans in the first place? Is it worse to be a free dog than to be a human slave? These dogs are organized, think, have language ability, and can survive independently. Shouldn't they fight for the right to self-determination? The people and dogs shown in the film should have an equal relationship, which is different from reality, but the director just encourages the relationship between people and pets to return to reality. This is the most contradictory part of the film. Of course, Wes Anderson isn't the first director to imbue animals with human intelligence, but the inconsistency is on full display when he ingeniously joins in the power struggle between man and dog.
The political element in the film is hard not to make viewers connect with the current reality, especially in the United States today when Trump takes office and intensifies the crackdown on immigrant workers. Therefore, the contradictions in this film also echo the contradictions between the Democratic Party and the liberals towards immigrant workers in reality: they keep saying that they love immigrants, but the reason is that "immigrants are willing to do things that others are not willing to do", "immigrants can guarantee jobs" Finish". In other words, isn't this a condescending master-loving-slave mentality? On the other hand, they support laws such as the so-called "employer punishment" that effectively deprive undocumented immigrants of their right to work, forcing undocumented immigrants to survive by enduring low working conditions by their bosses, thus becoming a new class of slaves. In this way, they really treat immigrants like dogs.
(Originally posted at: http://emilyliangfilms.com/blog/?p=2819 )
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