Beginning with Rushmore (1998), the films of Wes Anderson have seemed to sit outside of time, combining elements of past and present culture to create environments that belong entirely to themselves. This started to change somewhat with Moonrise Kingdom (2012), which situated the action in the middle 1960s, but its vision of the past was too fanciful for the film to be regarded as a straight period piece. History played a more prominent role in The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), as the movie commented obliquely on eastern European politics throughout the 20th century as well as the life and work of famed author Stefan Zweig. Here too Anderson’s robust imagination overwhelmed any factual details—in one typical development, Anderson conflated World Wars I and II into a single conflict. Yet one could sense an engagement with the real world coming into focus, particularly in the film’s haunting final shot, which considered the oppressive legacy of Soviet Communism and its deleterious impact on people’s imaginations.
Back in Megasaki, Mayor Kobayashi imprisons the idealistic scientist who sought to oppose the dogs’ banishment and later has the scientist killed. This a troubling reminder of the persecution of political dissidents in authoritarian regimes, and it serves as Isle of Dogs’s most frightening development. Yet Anderson finds hope in this scenario, presenting a group of activist high school students (led, improbably, by an American exchange student) who seek to expose the mayor’s evil machinations and rescue the banished dogs. Because the movie is a fantasy, the students succeed in their efforts and topple the mayor’s regime. This happy ending doesn’t cheapen the themes of persecution and displacement—Anderson renders the injustice of Trash Island so vividly that it lingers in the memory; moreover, his message of viewing the displaced with compassion is so winning that one accepts the optimistic conclusion.
