Flow Revisit: How A Silent Black Cat Beat Disney, DreamWorks, and Aardman
Copyright © Dream Well Studio, Sacrebleu Productions, Take Five, Arte France Cinéma, Canal+, Janus Films, Sideshow II
Title: Flow
Alternative Titles: Straume (original Latvian)
Director: Gints Zilbalodis
Release Date: August 29, 2024 (Latvia), October 30, 2024 (France), November 22, 2024 (United States), January 15, 2025 (Belgium)
The 97th Oscars was yet another crazy ceremony. For the Best Animated Picture, most of us were predicting Inside Out 2, The Wild Robot, or Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. However, the winner for that award was Flow, the independent animated cat movie from Latvia. This movie cost a £3.5 million budget (approx. $4.60 million), got animated on a laptop, and had no voices, yet it managed to make a wave with £50 million (approx. 65.67 million) in theaters worldwide. What is more astonishing about this movie is its severe critical success. Critics and audiences praised it for its lack of dialogue, messages, and animation. Its success has gotten to the point where it won several awards, especially from the Oscars and Golden Globe, and both of these award statues were put in the Latvian National Museum of Art. For telling the story through animal behavior instead of talking, Flow is a beautiful journey through a post-apocalyptic flood.
The 97th Oscars was yet another crazy ceremony. For the Best Animated Picture, most of us were predicting Inside Out 2, The Wild Robot, or Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. However, the winner for that award was Flow, the independent animated cat movie from Latvia. This movie cost a £3.5 million budget (approx. $4.60 million), got animated on a laptop, and had no voices, yet it managed to make a wave with £50 million (approx. 65.67 million) in theaters worldwide. What is more astonishing about this movie is its severe critical success. Critics and audiences praised it for its lack of dialogue, messages, and animation. Its success has gotten to the point where it won several awards, especially from the Oscars and Golden Globe, and both of these award statues were put in the Latvian National Museum of Art. For telling the story through animal behavior instead of talking, Flow is a beautiful journey through a post-apocalyptic flood.
Summary
"Cat is a solitary animal, but as its home is devastated by a great flood, he finds refuge on a boat populated by various species, and will have to team up with them despite their differences." - Google
"Cat is a solitary animal, but as its home is devastated by a great flood, he finds refuge on a boat populated by various species, and will have to team up with them despite their differences." - Google
Reasons
The ocean wonders of Flow are the storytelling, messages, and animation. To get the whale out of the room, none of the animals ever talk at all. Unlike other animal movies, it tells the story through animal noises, along with visuals and the natural environment. Well, it's a simple story about a cat surviving with other animals during a flood, yet it is a beautiful story. As seen from the animals, it also has strong messages. Honestly, the messages are a little less powerful than what The Wild Robot has, but it tells us about overcoming fear. It also tells us that we should cooperate with others we work with. Listed as the last of this bunch, the animation is visually telling things. Instead of being overly realistic, it aims for a dreamy art style that looks like a video game for the Xbox or Switch, which is so unbelievable since this is from a laptop. Even the movements are realistic in the animals, settings, and action.
Many other wonders from Flow are the execution, sound design, and soundtrack. The serious tone marks this as an animal feature aimed at the older kids. Unlike other animated films, no storyboards were used for scenes to be explored organically. It's weird how the director, Gints Zilbalodis, came up with artistic directions without the budget of a Disney movie. Being the emotional weight of the story, the sound design is expressive. Again, this movie has no dialogue, yet it used noises from real animals. It also relies on environmental sounds, like wind gusts or water splashes, to build up a problem. Last but not least, the soundtrack is minimalist, but it makes this movie what it is meant to be. Albeit seven hours of music were composed, only 52 minutes were put in the final cut. "Reflection" and "Acceptance" are fan favorites with a pretty instrumental atmosphere.
Conclusion
Flow is a unique and beautiful journey that tells about a cat surviving with its animal friends. We did not expect a laptop project to gain such severe success with critics and the awards. Instead of hiring voice actors, it tells a simple story through visuals and animal noises, which is what makes this film an underrated gem. In all of honesty, The Wild Robot was still a better contender (although IF is the better one when it comes to the whole pack), but at least Disney did not win for last year's animated movie awards. Whenever you have the time, please watch it.
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