Flow (2024)
Directed by: Gints Zilbalodis
Premise: An animated film. A cat lives a solitary life in the woods until the region is flooded by a natural disaster. The cat and several other animals take shelter on a boat and together they float downriver.
What Works: Flow is an impressive work of animation and visual storytelling. The movie has a unique look. It’s not quite realistic. The creatures have a rotoscoped look similar to the visual style of Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly. This gives the movie a bit of distance from reality without going into the cartoonish territory of Disney films. The visual style suits the filmmakers’ approach to the material. The animals of Flow are not fully anthropomorphized. They generally behave consistent with their species. The animals don’t talk or have musical numbers. Instead, the filmmakers use animal behaviors to communicate story and character. As anyone with pets can attest, individual animals have their own personalities and that’s true in Flow but the characterization is rooted in species-specific behaviors. Flow unfolds from the point of view of a black cat and the story is about this solitary animal coming into contact with other creatures, namely a dog, a capybara, a secretary bird, and a lemur. They get on a boat out of necessity—a flood has submerged the land—and they form a little ecosystem. Flow creates a palpable sense of tension as the animals are put in harm’s way and the filmmakers exploit the concern so many people have for small mammals. Scenes of the cat and his companions fighting for survival are very emotional but without turning up the dramatics. The movie is generally restrained in that respect which turns out to be much more powerful than trying to micromanage our emotions. The music by Gints Zilbalodis and Rihards Zaļupe is very effective this way. The score is placed well and underlines the emotion of the scene while also supporting a sense of wonder.
What Doesn’t: Flow occupies a space between Disneyfied versions of nature as seen Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey and The Lion King and something more strictly realistic such as Kedi or a BBC nature documentary. The animals of Flow don’t talk and they express themselves in naturalistic behaviors but they also possess an anthropomorphic quality especially in the way they cooperate and communicate with one another. That appears to be deliberate and part of the film’s style but it ultimately makes Flow a movie about human interests rather than animals or nature on their own terms.
Bottom Line: Flow is a beautiful movie and a unique animated feature. It will obviously appeal to animal lovers but Flow ought to play for virtually any audience. Its unique style and commitment to visual storytelling make this an outstanding example of what animation can do.
Episode: #1029 (December 29, 2024)