‘Flow’ is the great cinematic success story of 2024

PHOENIX (AZFamily) — We may be well into 2025, but there’s one more movie from the last year I’d like to talk about.

Synopsis

In what seems to be the near future where humans no longer exist, a dark grey cat finds his serene forest life disrupted by a great flood that washes through the land. With the water continuing to rise, the cat seeks refuge on a passing boat that already has a capybara on board. Stranded on the boat with no natural land in sight, the cat and capybara must go with the Flow of the water, encountering other animals on their journey, forcing them all to work together to survive.

My thoughts

There are few movies that come out these days that literally feel “inspirational”. I’m not talking about a movie having an uplifting message where it fills you with warm fuzzy feelings or anything like that. There are plenty of those out there, but aside from feeling “inspired” while experiencing the story, it’s all just a fleeting feeling that normally vanishes pretty quickly after that.

I love experiencing a captivating story through the filmmaking medium, but what really inspires me about filmmaking is the making part of it. There’s something so satisfying about seeing a finished product onscreen, knowing dozens, hundreds or even thousands of people put their blood, sweat and tears into it. When you look behind the scenes and see the passion and effort these people put into making a movie, it makes you appreciate their dedication that much more.

Taking five and a half years to make, Flow originates from Latvia, where co-writer and director Gints Zilbalodis and his team animated the entire film on the open source program Blender. It began there but grew into a multinational co-production along with France and Belgium, where afterwards it premiered at Cannes, became a hit, and eventually became king of the animated castle when it became the first Latvian film to win an Academy Award. It’s the little movie that could.

All in the same boat

Like the animals who are stuck on a boat and have to work together to survive in Flow, the different countries and filmmaking teams involved were in a similar situation themselves. They were all figuratively stuck in the same boat together, going with the flow of the extreme current that is independent filmmaking, but knowing if they survived the endeavor, it would all be worth it. It’s a story about collaboration down to its very core, showing how immense odds can be overcome if we all have the same goal and drive.

Flow isn’t just a film that legitimately inspires anybody with a single artistic bone in their body to go out there and create, but it’s a testament to the power of visual filmmaking. There’s not a single line of spoken dialogue in this entire film, so everything is conveyed via these animals’ actions and their cute little vocalizations. Who needs celebrity stunt casting when you can have meows, purrs, chirps and barks from Zilbalodis’ real pets themselves?! Using a camel’s voice for the capybara was the right call, though.

Since you don’t have those typical celebrity voices, you don’t have to deal with silly lines or constant yelling in desperate attempts at comedy like some animated films. There’s plenty of humor, but that mostly comes from the animals doing cute and funny things they like to do. This is no slight to animated films with A-list voice casts, as many of our favorite animated characters are voiced by big stars, but it was a welcome change of pace for Zilabalodis to completely commit to making this a silent film.

Friends of felines

Even if there’s no dialogue, each animal is very well-defined, and you get the gist of what they’re supposed to be communicating with each other. Pages of Zilbalodis’ and his co-writer Matīss Kaža’s script show that they actually wrote out these animal vocalizations as the “dialogue,” so you always have a good sense of what they’re trying to say. Each one has its own goals and little character moments, all of which influenced the cat’s arc of going from being solitary to embracing the world and animals around him.

This isn’t a movie just for cat lovers, but for anybody who loves adorable critters. There’s also a capybara, a lemur, a labrador retriever, a bird, and even a cool looking whale (the MVP of the movie, in my eyes)! Because of this cuddly cast, Flow is already incredibly sweet and endearing on a surface level, but Zilbalodis and Kaža craft an emotionally beautiful story that pulls at the heartstrings in more ways than one. One scene in particular is so stunningly beautiful that it will be seared into my memory forever, as well as my blubbering reaction while witnessing it.

With the lack of dialogue allowing Zilbalodis to focus completely on the visuals, he and his crew made sure to make Flow as visually arresting as possible. The animation here isn’t finely detailed like we see from Pixar and Dreamworks, but it has a distinct, lovely vibe all its own. The animals and environments have so much personality, with the rich colors making it look like a cross between a Miyazaki film and a watercolor painting. Just simply stunning from beginning to end.

Final verdict

Flow may not have been my favorite film of 2024, but it’s easily the greatest success story in the film industry of that year and no wonder it received all these accolades. To come from being animated on open-source software in Latvia all the way to being the first film from that country to win an Academy Award describes one movie and one movie only: this one. Flow is a complete triumph for the crew, Latvia, cute little critters, animated movies and the art of filmmaking as a whole.

My rating: 10/10

Flow is currently streaming on Max and available for rent and purchase on physical and digital platforms.

And unless I happen to see another movie from last year that blows me away to where I feel compelled to write my thoughts on it, that’s a wrap on the year 2024.

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