Bob Balaban as Rex – Fox Searchlight Pictures © 2018(NEW YORK) — Director Wes Anderson’s latest movie, Isle Of Dogs, in theaters now, is a stop-motion animated film set 20 years in the future in Japan, where the dog population has been banished to a remote island. Voicing the adorable pooches are a star-studded cast including Bryan Cranston, Jeff Goldblum, Scarlett Johanson, Bill Murray and Bob Balaban.
According to Balaban, it’s the animation of the dogs, created from “eight-inch little high puppets,” that really brings them to life.
“When you see the movie you’re watching living, breathing, human animals that convey more with a shrug of a shoulder, just the right eyebrow going up…it’s listening and it’s serious,” Balaban tells ABC Radio. “It is the most amazing [anthropomorphism] I’ve ever seen done anywhere.”
Anderson’s films, which include The Royal Tenenbaums, Moonrise Kingdom and The Grand Budapest Hotel, are known for being very quirky, but Balaban feels that Anderson’s work — including Isle of Dogs — is actually more universal.
“Wes is the perfect example of somebody who is making a movie that comes from the inside of his head,” he says. “Sometimes that can lead to some interesting, obscure movies, in other people’s hands. But in Wes’ hands, it seems to make them more universal which is kind of amazing. Because it shouldn’t, but it does.”
In the case of Isle of Dogs, it’s certainly based on a universal theme: the love of dogs. In fact, the movie hopes to raise awareness for dog rescue efforts. But there probably very few people who love dogs as much as Balaban does.
“I’m a dog maniac,” he exclaims. “I see the entire world through the eyes of a dog! And I want to be a dog! And I want to have a hundred thousand dogs.”
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