It’s hard to watch a movie like Flow without thinking of Life of Pi or The Bear, the 1988 French movie not the TV series. Both of those latter movies were directed by very skilled and talented directors, Ang Lee and Jean-Jacques Annaud, respectively. And they both featured movies that had animals as the main characters but also built a story more on visuals rather than dialogue.
There’s no dialogue in Flow. The plot follows a black/grey cat as it tries to seek shelter on a boat during a huge flood. The boat also contains dogs, a capybara and a lemur and they all form a special bond. The movie may be a Latvian movie as its director/co-writer Gints Zilbalodis is also Latvian. Yet the plot seems to exists is a world that has no description and thus no human beings nearby.
There’s images of a mutated whale swimming through an abandoned flooded metropolitan area so it’s best to presume the movie is set in some time set in the future. The timeline isn’t necessary because for many animals, survival is crucial on a daily basis. The exclusion of humans keeps the story from being distracted. While the hunters played by Jack Wagner and Tcheky Karyo in The Bear were important to the story even mirroring the relationship with the grizzly bear and the cub, it pulled away from the natural beauty of British Columbia before the Industrial Revolution.
For the most part, the animals seem to co-exist for their own safety despite the cat being threatened by a secretarybird. I think it’s like the nature shows you see of animals in Africa on the Serengeti at watering holes drinking. They all know how important water is and there’s a time to hunt and a time to replenish health.
The three-dimensional computer graphic animation help give the movie a more dream-like mesmerizing look. Call me old-fashioned as I like the two-dimensional animation, but 3DCG can work when it’s done with a lot of care and consideration for the story. Oddly for this type of movie, no storyboards were used. Zibalodis said that he just placed the animals in the scene and “explored them with the camera.”
It does seem to have a more documentary-style look to it, which seems to give the title a double meaning. There’s not even humans making animal noises on the soundtrack. No disrespect to the great voice actor Frank Welker but this was one problem I had with The Bear as the filmmakers gave the cub human-like sounds which were unnecessary. Miut, the cat of sound designer Gurwal Coïc-Gallas, was used for the cat, which is perfect because you need to hear an actual cat.
The success of the movie which received rave reviews and a nice box-office return as well as the Oscar for Best Animated Feature has led to an increase of people getting black cats. While I hope this isn’t the same knee-jerk reaction that happened when the 101 Dalmatians movie came out, it is nice that black cats are finally getting the attention they deserve. Sadly, most are abandoned and left in shelters to be later euthanized when they’re not adopted.
I raised a black cat from a baby as well as having a black Sphinx cat. Both were some of the most loving and friendly cats I ever had. Bill Hader has said even though he’s allergic to cats, he wants to get one now.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 