FLOW (TIFF 2024) – Review by Nadine Whitney
Latvian director Gints Zilbalodis’s impeccable fable Flow is again proof of Guillermo Del Toro’s maxim that animation is cinema – “It’s a medium for art, it’s a medium for film, and I think animation should stay in the conversation.” Del Toro argued that animation is not just for children and Flow, although family friendly, is a sophisticated metaphor for the effects for environmental crises, and for the experience of refugees trying to stay alive and learning to trust each other despite linguistic and cultural differences.
Cat is a domesticated creature who once lived with a sculptor. His form surrounds the property he once shared with recently absent humans. Left to fend for himself in a flooding world where land animals are also at threat of extinction, he finds himself on a boat inhabited by a sleepy capybara. As capybara and cat sail through a drowning world they pick up new passengers (much to cat’s initial disdain), a lemur who collects shiny trinkets, an imperious stork who proved herself brave and uncompromising, and a very keen and overly friendly golden retriever.
Zilbalodis sends the animals on an impossible journey crossing oceans and continents. Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas where the remnants of humankind’s achievements across the ages glisten in their final glory as they are swallowed by the rising oceans. The beauty of ancient cultures and their modern versions merge as time flows as mysteriously as the current steering the animals through the perilous and the peaceful.
Zilbalodis and co-screenwriter Matīss Kaža resist anthropomorphizing the animals as much as possible – relying on their natures as intelligent creatures to experience the strange world they are encountering as animals. However, as a fable the audience is still going to ascribe “human” attributes to their behaviour. Cat hisses and claws until he finds he can trust a compatriot; he likes knocking things over just because they are there. But cat is also changing from a spoiled pet to a loyal friend. Golden Retriever bounces uncontrollably waiting for approval from any pack he can find, innocent and sensitive. Capybara does as little as possible but is the stalwart moral compass. Stork gave up her place amongst her flock protecting cat and had her wing broken for it – she becomes the one holding the rudder of their wooden boat. Lemur can’t quite leave the world of humans, fascinated by all that glistens and hoarding treasure.
The animation in Flow is breathtaking. The attention to detail in creating the fantastic realm the animals inhabit is superb; grand, terrifying, beautiful, and melancholy. Small, flowered glades, the canals of Venice, waters filled with marine life from colourful fish to an ancient whale, and a tumultuous open sea. The animals themselves are not uncanny recreations of their different species but closely observed behavioural sketches which are recognisably who they are, but not photorealistic versions.
The water gives and takes life – and eventually erases all borders as the crew of the wooden ship search for land and sustenance. They don’t share a language, nor do they often share the same diets or needs. Cat finds himself at the bottom of the food chain when he’s chased by dogs, but also protected by Golden Retriever from the large storks, and then by a stork from other storks. He is afraid, confused, and brave – buoyed by the community of refugees who learn to share their strengths and act to protect each other.
Flow imagines a fantasy world informed by humanity’s achievements and follies. How many people have had to cross borders in close quarters with people they don’t know and often can’t communicate with to find sanctuary? How long will it be until there will be generations of environmental refugees seeking new homes as they watch the world they once knew become a memory?
Flow is a work of immense cinematic art. A film with no dialogue and no humans that speaks to both the human condition and considers the immensity of the natural world which is suffering because of our failures as a species. Flow is a profound, emphatic, and empathetic experience.
