The movie Flow is a very unlikely success story. Latvian filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis began production on the animation masterpiece back in 2019, and it took five and a half years to complete. Featuring no dialogue and completed using free open-source 3D animation software, Flow follows the adventures of a cat and the cat’s unlikely band of friends who must together face an unexplained flood and its impacts.
Flow features a slew of unforgettable animals including a pack of dogs, a capybara, a secretarybird, and a ring-tailed lemur. And Flow realistically depicts its animal characters. That is to say, they behave the way these animals actually behave instead of like the more anthropomorphized, human-esque animals we typically see in animated movies.
All of it comes together to make a film experience unlike any other. While the idea of watching a bunch of animals try to outlast a flood with no dialogue might sound dull, in practice Flow is spellbinding. I first watched the movie with my brother and my 8- and 4- year old nephews. Almost immediately, all four of us, children and adults alike, locked into the movie, which took us on an exciting, emotional, and sometimes scary adventure. Its lack of dialogue allowed us to openly ask questions, speculate on what the characters were thinking, and add in our own two cents, making it one of the more magical movie experiences I’ve had in years.
****Flow first debuted to acclaim at the Cannes Film Festival, went on to award season success, and is set to be released on a 4K Criterion disk sometime this year. As of now, audiences are catching up with – and loving – Flow on Max. From its humble beginnings as a long-gestating open-source animation movie to an award-winning Criterion entry, the story of Flow needs to be experienced to be believed.
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