Flow

• Latvian: Straume
• Directed by Gints Zilbalodis
• May 22, 2024 (Cannes) / August 29, 2024 (Latvia) / October 30, 2024 (France) / January 15, 2025 (Belgium)

A cat along with other animals tries to survive after a disaster while the water level in the area dramatically rises.

Movies often have a string of credits before they get to the actual film. But Flow quite possibly has the longest string of production company credits I can think of in recent memory. It just goes on forever before we get to the actual movie. That’s not really a criticism of the film itself. It’s just very annoying.

Once they get past the unnecessary/excessive amount of acknowledgments of all those who paid money to have their logo up on the screen, it’s a pretty tight story with no dialogue. Flow doesn’t waste any time really. Everything that occurs contributes to the narrative. Since these characters lack words, actions need to display who they are. Whether it’s the cat, the dog, the capybara, the secretary bird, or the ring-tailed lemur, Flow makes each different from the other in a way that fits with the animals.

With no dialogue this movie is accessible to anyone. Just the sounds of the creatures that inhabit this world. We watch the cat’s journey and actually care about the character. It interacts with other creatures who at times stand up for it or care for him in a way that’s not human yet animal but we can identify with. It’s amazing what can be done when some effort is put into it.

It was a very bold move to do this completely without a line of dialogue. The reflexive (and easiest) way to tell a story with animal to make them speak. Like it or not that shuts down markets because of a need for dubbing. It is also simpler to distinguish the cast with words AND actions over actions alone. Heck, the characters do not even have names!

The story of Flow is filtered through an animal perspective. There are themes of friendship and loyalty. Trust begets loyalty. Loyalty sometimes begets sacrifice. There is danger and adventure all presented in a movie that is almost like a dream. Scale makes things huge.

I found this to be a very mature movie, but not one that’s inappropriate for children. It never tries to talk down to the audience or soften things. Nor does it go unnecessarily harsh. It’s a family film much closer to Watership Down than it is anything produced by Disney.

The story builds. The tiny things that happen make the world more realistic. Slight movements like adjustment of a wing or an ear or there’s things that changes in the body to communicate tension or happiness or excitement. These all appear in a natural way.

The visuals matched with the scale of the environment create a dream-like or fantasy feel to this without anything seemingly improbable happening. We get an epic journey that is stunning to watch.

Flow is a great movie. Exciting, funny, dramatic, and absolutely beautiful. It’s a darker animated film but still family-friendly and something that will beg you to watch it again and again.