Flow (2024) - An Invitation to Care
Flow dir. Gints Zilbalodis (2024)
9/10
"Cat is a solitary animal, but as its home is devastated by a great flood, he finds refuge on a boat populated by various species, and will have to team up with them despite their differences." (IMDB)
It’s hard to know where to start when it comes to talking about Flow (2024). I am so glad I decided to go see it knowing almost nothing about it besides “animated” “cat” “movie”. I would encourage you to check it out for yourself if you, like me, were sold in just those three words as it is finally available on streaming services like Max. And like with any good film, going into it knowing as little as possible is going to enhance the experience for you. (Consider this an Official Spoiler Warning™)
However, towards the end of awards season, it’s likely you've already heard about its Golden Globe win, and Oscar nominations and maybe a little bit more about how it came to be.
Expanded upon to full feature length from the short film "Aqua", Flow follows a cat navigating its vastly changed landscape after a massive flood. Our independent feline protagonist is quickly forced to overcome its hesitance with trusting others when it comes across other animal victims of the flood and learns they must depend on each other to weather the storm. Among this band of animal characters are: in delightful contrast to the lone black cat, a trusting golden retriever, a gruffly nonchalant capybara, a knickknack-loving lemur, and perhaps my personal favorite (aside from the cat), a noble secretary bird.
The world of Flow is one that has remnants of a recent human civilization, but no humans and no direct answers as to what might have happened to them to leave behind only animals. While some of the animals are wild, the domesticated dog and cat, whose animations are closely modeled after Zilbalodis' own beloved pets, behave exactly like the domesticated cats and dogs we would be familiar with. And though some suspension of disbelief is required to imagine these distinct species managing to communicate so well with another, strangely (or ingeniously), the absence of language or overt anthropomorphism grounds the entire story and sells you in the first few minutes on all the events following.
The movie contains absolutely no dialogue, but does have animal voice-actors for the animal characters, a tense and wondrous score mixed with immersive foley, and lacks absolutely nothing from the absence of human characters or language at all. The close attention to naturalistic animal behavior in the animation, while still expressing distinct characters and a clear story is a feat well-deserving of the accolades it is receiving in this awards season.
Charmingly paralleling the cat's journey, filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis himself took on the task of working with a larger team in the production of Flow, as previously his films were made largely independently, as a self-taught animator. The animation, done in Blender, is also noteworthy for its artistic but naturalistic style. (x) I'd imagine that pausing at every other scene would provide you with an awesome still to use as a new desktop wallpaper.
Though I am no animation expert, what I can speak to is the interesting camera work in this film. Perhaps a funny thing to notice in an animated film, the camera movements and placements capture both the terror and tension of a small creature in catastrophic circumstances, as well as the wonder and awe at the beauty of nature and the sheer scale of an expansive world through a cat's eyes.
In just the first few scenes the camera moves in tandem with the cat's frenetic movements as it fearfully dodges a pack of running dogs. Untethered by the limitations of physical space, the camera often sweeps across the environment, turning out to show us what the animal characters are looking towards but always finding its way back to the cat. Often, the camera finds a comfortable place a distance away from behind the cat, trailing along as though it were a video game rather than a movie.
In fact, that feels distinctly like where Zilbalodis could have drawn inspiration, as he says in an Academy Conversations, "I wanted to create the sense that you are the cat in the film. I wanted to create that subjective kind of point-of-view..." To me this is much like the camera in a story-based video game where it locks onto a central character acting as the audience surrogate, sometimes being independently controlled by the player allowing for different angles, with some cutscenes interspersed between. I found this style of cinematography fresh and engaging, and whether or not intentional, felt like it acknowledged and nodded to the sister mediums of movies and video games and the thinning barriers separating the two.
Flow is a movie of layers. If you were to entirely turn your brain off to watch this movie, scene after scene would unfold and flow together (pun intended) into an artful visual experience that washes over you as the sun rises and sets on each day of these animals' journey. Which is to say, even with zero effort or engagement on the part of the viewer, I believe anyone would still be moved by what they saw and have gained something by the end of it.
Then, the first layer of this story is one of teamwork. Overcoming differences, learning to trust and depend, learning to be independent, growing to care and letting go. Rather humanistic lessons all presented through these animals in their relationships to one another and the harsh world they live in.
And then, perhaps most importantly, one layer deeper is a message about environmentalism and nature. Every scene, even the most harrowing, showcases the beauty and awesome power of nature. Portraying the environment like this is a conscious decision that unpretentiously invites you to care. In a film with no words, it says very clearly, for those paying attention, that this thing we are complicit in the destruction of, is much larger, older, and greater than us. We have to care.
The larger themes of environmentalism, the necessity of community in times of crisis, and perhaps even some secular spirituality in a scene or two, are all topics worthy of further analysis. However, what I felt most compelled to to talk about, was how it presents these messages.
Perhaps I have extrapolated too far in this case to say that the meta story is a part of the story itself here, but that would be perfectly in character for me. I believe that the how of the story is just as much a part of the story as anything, and I believe Zilbalodis to be a filmmaker of a similar persuasion.
He says, "I wanted to give some hints about the past, what happened, where are the people, but I'm not explaining it. I'm asking the audience to participate in the storytelling. There's a lot of environmental storytelling. You have to look and pay attention. And I think if you pay attention you will be rewarded..." (10:29-10:51)
It takes a lot of trust in the audience to entirely forgo dialogue in your film and have faith that people will still understand it. A dialogue-free film is not unheard of, after all, silent film is where cinema started. But it is still a bold choice. And especially in this case, with a PG rating but free of the condescension or dumbed down plot of many family friendly movies, it is so accessible to a wide audience while remaining rich and layered. This is important.
If you're anything like me, you find yourself fighting daily to regain your own fraught attention span and scrambling to figure out how to meaningfully do that. Flow might be a step in the right direction.
Lovers of film and TV have many concerns these days. We fear that movies are getting too long (x), that movie theaters are dying (x), or that our sacred entertainment is slowly becoming more and more commercial as it becomes dominated by massive franchises locked in intellectual property battles or churning out endless and soulless sequels, reboots & remakes (oh my!). Among these concerns, the most prominent, and the most substantiated, is the fear that we're losing our ability to pay attention to any of it.
The subject of internet addiction & attention disruption is a broad and dense topic that could not even be adequately summarized here. But chances are, whether or not you have an in-depth of understanding of why it might be affecting you, you feel that it is.
Here are some of the most common symptoms:
- Idly looking at one small screen while a different bigger screen plays something you're "watching" (x)
- Reading headlines of articles or maybe the first few sentences before sending them to friends or colleague and reposting them on your social media
- Looking up to find the sun has set and you don't remember how you spent the last two hours (hint: it was scrolling through TikTok, Reels, Shorts, etc.)
My prescription, is Flow (2024). At least to start with. Turn off your phone (or just put it on do not disturb if turning it off feels too scary), make yourself a snack, dim the lights, and treat yourself to this movie. Why this movie? Because it asks politely for your attention. And rewards you greatly should you give it. For the mass media times we're in, this endearing adventure with animal-like animals and a dialogue-free script, feels like an antidote to the chaotic bombardment of everything that competes to exploit your dwindling attention.
Yes I'll admit, it may be counterintuitive to prescribe more media for those who may find it hard to sit with their own thoughts and self-soothe with a 24/7 stream of constant noise. But I believe that for those that want to start new habits and reclaim their minds, this is a film that sympathizes and offers you an invitation. To sit and not just passively view, but pay attention, and maybe even care.
It should go without saying that in order to affect change in the world, we have to be able to be present in it. What does it mean for a film's messages about nature and community to only be understood by first relinquishing distractions in order to heed them?
Going up against the behemoths that are Disney and Dreamworks in the Animated Feature Film category, as well as several other worthy contenders in the International Feature Film category, I'll gladly be tuning in to the Academy Awards on Sunday to root for Flow (2024).
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