Melbourne International Film Festival Review - Flow

 

“Meow”

Beautiful, fluid and emotional, Flow is a fantastic animated film filled with furry and feathered friends facing a flood of biblical proportions in a visually stunning, and deeply emotive work of imagination and fantasy imagery that swept me away in its simple sincerity and artistic depth. 

Discussion Points:

A picture says a thousand words, and Flow is a phenomenal animated film free of dialogue and yet rich with story. With such a beautiful world that draws visual inspiration from a variety of sources, Latvian director and animator Gints Zilbalodis presents a world where the audience can fill in the blanks and import their own ideas and yet the central story is still captivating and entrancing. In a vivid and fluid 3D animated nature landscape that feels both prehistoric and post-apocalyptic, we follow a black cat, afraid of water and suspicious of others as they eventually board a vessel with a capybara, stork, lemur, and dog to survive a flood of biblical proportions. What follows is a powerfully simple tale of unity over uniformity and teamwork in a stunningly animated and dynamic world. There’s a deep poeticism, spiritualism and naturism imbued into the film and with breathtaking visuals you can’t helped but be immersed. The addition of such realistic animal renderings from movements to mannerisms helps the film feel so lived in, and yet there’s entertaining cartoony character aspects that give the film enlivened energy. One of the very best animated films in recent memory and I can’t wait to see more from the director in the future!