Flow

With not a word uttered, time flies by as you witness this rollercoaster of an adventure. Unexpectedly, this was a very moving, emotional and engaging film.

The world of the story is similar to ours but it is devoid of humans. The Cat leads a happy life in what looks like a forest house, when the world is swept up by a gigantic flood. What follows is the tale of fighting against extreme odds as the Cat learns to rely on others for survival and to grow to care about his unlikely companions.

Masterful story telling and character development meet profound empathy and clear themes, this film is for everyone. Moving and uplifting. Absolutely loved it!

FLOW (2024) Nominated for both Best Animated Feature AND Best International Film.

An entrancing animated nature fable from Latvia's Gints Zilbalodis. A dialogue free adventure tale about a Cat who survives the next great flood. The Cat is rushed along with the water and comes across a number of other animals which persevere including a small 'herd' of sorts including an scavenging Lemur, a lazy Dog, a Secretary Bird which has lost its ability to fly, and a lumbering Capybara (rodent). The herd gets swept along and end up on a boat for a spell. The animals all have personality but aren't given anthropomorphism nor cutesy dialogue. They're just creatures trying to understand what in the world is going on. The sea, naturally, is teeming with life.

The animation was created by a free open source software (Blender), yet the filmmaker and his team do wonders with it. The blended design for the beasts may not be photo-realistic, but have a charming character of their own. The backgrounds are gorgeous and evocative.

Zilbalodis never gives a direct explanation for what is happening, but the lack of humans (and the deluge) certainly leads one to an ecological disaster. The most haunting visuals are the remnants of civilization: abandoned buildings, submerged and decaying structures and large man-made monuments to humanity and even cats! The parable is as powerful as it is simple. A society which can create magnificent technology, but is unable (or unwilling) to save the natural world around them. FLOW and its animals give a glimmer of hope.

The world today isn't exactly something that gives you hope for the future.

This movie is about a time when humans are (seemingly) gone. So in that way, it doesn't really give you hope either.

But...

Earth isn't just humans. It's full of animals that sometimes just live together in some sort of harmony. Granted. This movie makes it seem like it's so easy for them to live together across species. That part is somewhat silly. But the movie is done in a way that the animals are somewhat humanized. And the way they interact together gives me a bit of hope for earth. Not humans. Earth will be fine. As for humans, that remains to be seen.

But this movie is a small wonder that will make you smile and enjoy about 1½ hour of happiness.

... because there is no explanation of what is happening whatsoever. There is no narration. The animals do not talk and there are no human characters. All you know is what you see for yourself. It's like a silent film in that regard - You must pay attention to the entire thing.

A cat lives alone in a world devoid of humans. There are signs of past civilization all around - entire cities, amphitheaters, statues, and even a huge statue of a cat that looks like an idol. The cat lives in a house that has the signs of past human habitation all around - there are drawings and models that indicate that whoever lived in the cat's house built the cat statues and was planning to build more.

But then a flood comes one day and the waters rise so high that practically everything is underwater. In this situation a boat comes along and the cat finds himself adrift in that boat with a capybara, a lemur, a dog, and a secretary bird. The boat really isn't adrift though, as all of the animals know how to steer the boat.

One of the more unique things about it is that the creators had the brilliant idea to set the anthropomorphization for the non-human characters to about 25%, instead of the usual 75-100% where the characters might as well be humans in animal costumes. The characters' behaviors in Flow feel entirely natural for their species -- It's just that their intelligence has been enhanced enough to allow them greater self-reflection and interspecies communication. It's all a very refreshing take versus Disney and Pixar films.

This world the film inhabits seems to be a post-human one, but I wonder. My read is that at some point shortly before the events of the film, humans became animals. The human owner of the sculptor's cottage didn't disappear. The cat is the sculptor. Also note how, before the flood, the cat wanders during the day, but at night comes home to the sculptor's house and sleeps in a human bed - the kind of thing that humans do. But that's my take. You decide.

Bravo everyone! Show to the Hollywood how it's done!

Such a beautiful story - no words, no explanation - so liberating!

Liberating from "someone else's burden", as Nietzsche would say.

Liberating from imposed narrations.

Liberating from expectations.

Mind goes "Oh, it's a modern interpretation of Noah's Ark" - no it's bloody NOT! - "But what happened, why are they...?" - it doesn't matter!

"Is the end of the world shown?" - No, it's not.

It's just an excerpt of some situation, some flood, somewhere, sometime - experienced through the eyes of certain creatures - and VERY beautifully depicted in this fantastic film.