Introduction
Isle of Dogs is a stop motion film directed by Wes Anderson about a young Japanese boy searching for his dog and save the dog-kind. This movie is produced by Indian Paintbrush and Anderson's own production company, American Empirical Pictures, in association with Studio Babelsberg in year 2018. In this blog, we are going to talk about the cinematography of this film.
Synopsis
Since 1000 years ago, the Kobayashi clan who hated dogs rules a land in Japan. In the present, mayor Kobayashi intended to keep dogs away from mankind by delivering all dogs to the trash island. Spot, who is a bodyguard for Ataki was the first one being sent to the island. 6 months later, Ataki hijacked a plane and ran away from Megasaki to look for Spot. However, his plan was crashed on the trash island and he was rescued by a pack of dogs led by Chief. They then helped Ataki in his mission of searching for Spot. While they were attacked by Kobayashi’s men and robot dogs, Spot came to the rescue. Ataki, Spots and the pack sailed back to Megasaki to stop Kobayashi from killing all the dogs on the trash island. The dogs were then saved and returned to their homeland.
Description
I had actually watched this film for 1 and a half times. The first time I watched this film was many months back and I only watched half of the film as I felt disgusted with the style of the characters. When I started to analyze this film, I started to feel slightly better about it. Although I still don’t like the style of their characters but I think this is a film with interesting cinematography and filming style. I think that this fill is truly a piece of breathtaking art.
Besides, I like how they use the language in the film. Although it is a Japanese story filmed by American filmmakers, they did not dub the dialogues with English like any other films. On top of that, the most interesting part is that only the conversations of dogs are spoken in English and all the human speaks Japanese. In my opinion, this could be how the filmmakers project the story from the dog’s point of view. They want us to understand the dogs and make us feel like the dogs. It is like how dogs could not fully understand human language, and most of us (except those who know Japanese) can’t fully understand what the human in the film had spoken.
Analysis
Common filmmakers often put their object slightly away from the center to achieve the rule of thirds to achieve a more engaging visuals, which they are often be asymmetrical. However, the composition of this film is really magnificent. Almost all of the scenes in this film have a symmetrical composition, just like the other films directed by Wes Anderson. They all look so flat, balanced, and very stunning. There are also a lot of frames with split screens to balance the composition and at the same time, showing two events that happen simultaneously. It gives me a very fresh feeling when I was watching it because it is really rare to see such composition in any other films.
Talking about the symmetrical composition of the film, looks like Wes Anderson also aware about the characters. As what I remember, the actors or actresses are not allowed to look at the camera while filming because I think it will lose the natural look of the film. Yet, the characters of this film often face directly towards the camera. The reason why is because I think that this technique can further enhance the symmetrical balance of the composition within the frame. It could also promote the eye contact of the characters in the film and also the audience, which it helps me to always stay focused while watching this film.
Another unique cinematography technique of this film is how the transitions are made. I noticed that some scenes uses panning to enter the following scene. Unlike other films, the panning is not being made continuously. It appears to be like a slideshow to me because it was like stop and let the event to happen before it pans to the next scene. For instance, the scene when the pack of dogs was helping Ataki to build his plane and Chief does not want to join the company. The scenes first show Ataki and the dogs, then it pans to reveal Chief ignoring them from a distance. I think that this method is really interesting as it could give the audience some time to “digest” the mise-en-scene before it proceed to the next one and it could give a wider view of the setting.
Conclusion
The film language of this movie is really fascinating as it was a film that the mise-en-scene was constructed symmetrically with a balanced setting and also characters that face directly at the camera. The frequent use of panning as transition is also very interesting. We all know that there is a standard for all films which are meant to be followed. However, I think it is fine to disobey this standard after we mastered the art of cinematography.
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