Flow

Flow

I must say I had not heard of Gints Zilbalodis before, the talented Latvian animator, but after his acclaimed first feature ‘Away’ in 2019 and now his Oscar winning ‘Flow’, I suspect everyone will now know his name.

Flow is simply the most magical and touching film you will see all year. Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks and Sony have all made fortunes attributing human traits to animals in films too numerous to reference, so it is a breath of fresh air that ‘Flow’ comes along without any cute anthropomorphic animals breaking out into wise cracks and song.

The story is simplicity itself. A massive tsunami has engulfed an unnamed part of the world with sea levels rising to create a waterworld. Five animals - a black cat, capybara, labrador, lemur and secretary bird, at various stages, all find themselves stranded together in a small boat in a desperate struggle for survival - a miniature Noah’s Ark.

Can the animals tame their natural instincts and work together? Of course they can and what a journey they go on! You will be on the edge of your seat and holding your breath hoping against hope that all the animals survive in a series of thrilling set pieces. There is not a single piece of dialogue, but all the animals nevertheless communicate effectively through their natural body movements and in the case of our titular hero, the black cat ‘Flow’, with his expressive yellow eyes and meows.

The landscapes and naturalism of the animals seem groundbreaking with the animal just being…err…animals. Only ‘Bambi’ comes to mind as a comparison in which Walt Disney adopted the same extraordinary naturalism of the animals by observing them at close quarters.

‘Flow’ has put Gints Zilbalodis at a juncture where ‘Spirited Away’ put Hayao Miyazaki 24 years ago with the future of Japanese animation in his hands. Much has been made of the film being made on the free-to-use open-source software Blender, as if to suggest anyone can do it - a ‘democratisation of animation’ if you will. I don’t think so, but certainly, Zilbalodis has a great opportunity to build upon his success with ‘Flow’ and create his own animation studio using the best talents out of the Baltic states and Eastern Europe to rival American and Japanese animation. The future is bright and I predict that ‘Flow’ is the first of many Oscars for Gints Zilbalodis, a name to remember.