How to tame a dog with love?

Liana 2022-04-19 09:01:52

This article 2018-05-07 was published in the DeepFocus public account

text | lsa

Wes Anderson's new film "Isle of Dogs" is out. This is his second animated feature film, still full of childlike and clever humor; on and off the screen, adults covered in dirt are looking back at their pure white hearts, trying to find their true and original selves . But beyond this consistent motif, "Isle of Dogs" is also full of adult metaphors. Wes Anderson borrows the chubby little ones and the fluffy puppies to express some of his thoughts on modern society and politics.

Isle of Dogs is a movie with a unique visual style. The flat, illustration-like composition, overhead and panning shots, metaphorical greys and reds, and comically fast movements of the characters (or animals) are basically a nod to Wes Anderson's usual style (especially It is a continuation of "Fantastic Daddy Fox"). One of the things that distinguishes "Isle of Dogs" from other films is the use of Japanese subtitles throughout - in fact, not only the use of Japanese subtitles and Japanese dialogue, the title of "Isle of Dogs" also pays homage to Japanese animation's "" Sponsored Broadcast" segment.

"Isle of Dogs" is set in the futuristic world of Japan. Garbage, pollution, tall buildings, spotlights, plagues, tyranny... a post-apocalyptic world wrapped in a fairy tale skin.

In many sci-fi films, oriental culture has appeared as a future cultural center (Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell, Her). In "Canis Island", this cultural centrality has gone beyond the story text, spilled over to the audio-visual aspects of the film, and even extended to the interaction between the audience and the film in the real world. The film ridiculed the Western-centric language model, and still used a lot of Japanese subtitles when Western audiences could understand English dialogue but not Japanese. At least in this dark theater space, the audience has traveled to a future world dominated by oriental culture: on the TV of the future, newscasters will interpret unfamiliar oriental languages ​​in English; Kana and Kanji.

But on the other hand, the eastern culture, which seems to be dominant in the fantasy world, is still unable to escape the embarrassing situation of Western centrism - after all, this is a film made by an American director for the world to see. First of all, the dog as the protagonist still speaks English and uses English thinking to explain everything in the world; secondly, the Japanese spoken by the Japanese in the film is not translated, but needs to be explained through the English of the newscaster-they are still A group of oriental people speaking a strange language. Even the leader of the film student movement was a white girl who shouted angrily to Yoko Ono, a scientist who is also a woman: "Show what a scientist should be!" As if for a female scientist, what should be is only There can be an answer: probably like this female student from the other side of the ocean, heroic and radical.

In addition to the formal mind, Wes Anderson also stuffed a lot of political and social metaphors into the text of "Canis Island", such as centralization and democracy, such as the insignificance of science in politics, such as the new tyranny born after the victory of the revolution . And the biggest metaphor is still the difference between Eastern and Western thinking: how to tame a dog?

This is a slightly ridiculous question, but the reasoning is simple enough. How do we achieve the desired effect? The West tends to erode softly, while the East seems to be better at exercising authority. Individuals are of great significance in Western culture, and the use of authority may not necessarily achieve the desired effect (or even counterproductive), and they prefer to solve problems with humor, adaptation, and communication; while in the Eastern world, whether it is family or society, authority and hierarchy. Unbreakable makes the use of authority, rules and force to solve problems often more efficient. As the old saying goes: "Eat soft" or "eat hard"? Candy and ruler, assimilation and force, both sides have their own answers.

Nagisa Oshima's classic film "Merry Christmas on the Battlefield", which used the life of Japanese prisoners of war camps during World War II to explore the cultural differences between the East and the West, reflected this issue from various aspects. The film progresses to the climax, and a scene with strong symbolic meaning is impressive, that is, the confrontation between the kiss and the knife. When Ryuichi Sakamoto, a Japanese officer, is about to execute Hicksley, the captain of the prisoner of war, for refusing to report to the military, Celliers, a lone hero played by David Bowie, comes to his raised knife. Celliers, who knew Yonoi had a different feeling for him, grabbed the nearly broken officer's shoulders and left a kiss on his left and right cheeks. This confrontation finally ended with the total collapse of the original Eastern order (the fall of Yonoi) and the burying of the seeds of Western thinking (the victory of the kiss).

"Isle of Dogs" continues this story. The young Japanese boy Atari does not represent the old Eastern order, but the next generation with Western thinking. He lost his parents in an accident, implying that he is an orphan who has lost cultural ties; the ancient war in the title shows that the moment Shinoi fell in "Merry Christmas on the Battlefield" is the traditional value The moment it breaks.

Japan's traditional values ​​have undergone a complete change after World War II. Consumerism, feminism, sexual openness... The influx of Western culture has found an outlet for the Japanese's repression. While enjoying the fun, while wondering, criticizing, and mocking, this nation with a strong cultural personality and a dog-like stubbornness has been "domesticated" in this way. It is worth mentioning that authority also played an important role in this process: the famous Japanese director Kinoshita Keisuke's 1951 work "Carmen Returns Home" shows the process of post-war Western culture flowing from the city to the countryside. Carmen's father couldn't understand why his daughter danced this "shameful dance", but he believed that as long as the state allowed it, it should be justified.

The plague-devoured puppies each suffer from modern diseases ("loneliness", "insomnia"), and Wes Anderson seems to be referring to the mutated people in modern society. If they represent an emerging group that is different from ordinary people born with the evolution of society, then this action to drive sick dogs to the garbage island is a division and cannibalism of human society: between those in power and the mainstream society In their eyes, these marginalized people are no different from animals. Undoubtedly, there are some marginalized groups in the real world, whose culture and way of life are often not accepted by the mainstream society. Whether it is prostitutes, beggars, and underworld based on economic structure, homosexuals, goths, hippies based on cultural identity, or sects and ethnic minorities, the mainstream society often looks at their world with suspicion and confusion. Blame them on how many problems and difficulties they have brought to social life.

So how to solve a problem as dangerous and intractable as a sick dog, a plague? Atari used love. Here's Wes Anderson's answer: Trouble doesn't go away just because you drop it on a quarantined island of trash, what we need to do is pay attention to them, understand them, and caress them. Remove the dirt from the surface, maybe it's not the dirty black dog, but your closest companion.

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Extended Reading

Isle of Dogs quotes

  • Spots: That's highly confidential. Um, anyway, I'm not the mayor's accountant's dog. That's Butterscotch, and she got crushed in a glass compactor the day before yesterday. No, my duties are, uh, focused entirely on the protection of the mayor's ward, Atari. I'm not supposed to be his friend, but I love him very much, but that's a private matter. Um, the only reason I even said that was because we're all probably going to die out here and I'll never see him again.

  • Atari: [to Mayor Kobayashi, in Japanese] You took me in, like a stray dog.