Movie Review: Flow

Michael's Movie Grade: A+

An absolutely wonderful animated movie from Latvia. 

This film takes place in post-apocalyptic world where humans don't exist anymore. However, this is never focused on because it simply is not the point of this movie. Instead, this is a film about this group of animals banding together in a giant flood and forming an unlikely friendship. This is all told without a single word of dialogue. Yet dialogue is never missed once here. That is because the film is a tour de force for character animation. Every second, you can tell exactly what these characters are thinking. We relate and care about these characters completely, especially the main character, an adorable black cat. At the same time these characters feel completely animal. These are not human-like cartoon animals in the vein of Looney Tunes or Disney, but they feel like real animals. It is obvious that the filmmakers studied real animals for this movie, because they move just like and act just like them. Yet the characters have their own personalities outside of simply being the types of animals they are. Because of this when they form their unlikely friendships it is actually quite touching, just as watching unlikely friendships form between real animals is a lovely thing to witness. The fact that these friendships don't form right away but come about overtime makes the film even more beautiful and touching. Despite the realistic depictions of these animals' personalities, this movie gives its characters a stylized look that works beautifully and is definitely more appealing than the hyper-realistic animation seen in some of Disney's "live action" remakes (even as a huge Disney fan, I can't stand those films). As well as character moments like these, the film stays exciting and entertaining throughout due to some very well-crafted suspense scenes and some good comedic moments. 

The director of this movie is Gints Zilbalodis. This is only his second feature film (though he has directed short films as well). His first feature was Away (2019), which also was an animated movie that was essentially a silent film. 

This is simply an animated masterpiece.