Flow

If it’s been a while since you last enjoyed a Latvian, dialogue-free animated film, boy, do I have a recommendation for you!

Beating out incredible competition like INSIDE OUT 2, WALLACE & GROMIT: A VENGENCE MOST FOWL, and THE WILD ROBOT, FLOW shocked the world by taking home the Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature. It remains to be seen if it can procure the Oscar as well, but even if it doesn’t, the onslaught of accolades have ensured that this modern masterpiece will be discovered by a much wider audience than it would have been otherwise.

FLOW tells the story of a unique band of animals trying to survive at the end of the world. We first meet the solitary Cat as he attempts to steal a fish from a small group of dogs. As Cat flees and the canines follow, water levels begin to rise. As the film progresses, the water continues to its onslaught, effectively covering all land masses and everything that stands in the way. For the creatures of the forest, boats become the only refuge. Those who can find a vessel to climb aboard will survive, but unfortunately, they are few and far in-between.

I can’t recall a film in recent memory whose plot is more difficult to describe than FLOW. Telling you about an animated film with no-dialogue featuring a cat, a capybara, a dog, a secretary bird, and a ring-tailed lemur traveling around on a boat while discovering comfort and companionship in the apocalypse seems like a fairly easy task, but it’s virtually impossible to convey the complexities and beauty of what unfolds on the screen. The most important thing to realize is that much like the opening scene of THERE WILL BE BLOOD, the action is so captivating that you won’t even realize that words aren’t being spoken.

Director Gints Zibalodis and his production crew spent five years bringing FLOW to life. The animals are astoundingly realistic, and each have their own distinct personalities and forms of communications. The bond that is forged between the creatures is a gradual, humorous, and touching process, particularly as we watch as the guarded Cat begins to let others in. The animation is stunning in its relentless beauty, and like its fellow award-season nominees, presents a uniquely magnificent vision that helps hammer home the fact the genre has evolved to a point where it can now easily stand tall amongst the year’s best. Like many of its most poignant live-action counterparts, FLOW weaves a perilous end-of-days tale that explores themes of fear, hope, heartbreak, challenges, failures, triumphs, and most importantly, friendship.

FLOW is breathtakingly unique in its delivery. It is an animated film that doesn’t look like it was simply created. Zibalodis’s impeccable direction make it appear as if it was filmed. Scenes unfold as if there were a camera following the action, traveling in a manner that is so profoundly unique that I can’t recall ever seeing anything like it before. This effect has been hinted at in other action-based animated adventures (the SPIDER-VERSE movies immediately come to mind) but in a quieter film like this, it becomes a storytelling method that effectively fills the dialogue void. This, paired with the utilization of each animal’s natural sound (except for the capybara whose call isn’t exactly cinematic) shapes characters who develop their own distinct personalities. Despite the shockingly bleak prospects of survival, there is a sense of joy and hope that permeates throughout, which directly compliments the sense of wonderment that permeates throughout the entire duration of this magnificent film.

FLOW
GRADE: A

RATED: PG
RUN TIME: 1h 25min
GENRE: Adventure, Animation, Family, Fantasy
DIRECTOR: Gints Zilbalodis
WRITERS:  Gints Zilbalodis, Matiss Kaza, Ron Dyens

Now streaming on Max

Brian Miller