Without Words, a Universal Message

"Flow"
Photo Credit: RottenTomatoes.com

When it comes to animation, presenting a story without dialogue can make it that much more impactful.  While it doesn’t happen that much these days, we’ve had some superb examples of wordless storytelling over the last couple of decades in the animation genre.  In the moments when animation deals with non-human characters, it’s easier to give yourself over to such a story that’s told in that form of the medium, as it somehow seems to fit.  Walt Disney Feature Animation did this with the opening sequence of “Dinosaur”; Pixar has done it with their animated shorts and the opening third of “WALL-E”; and, a few months ago, we got the latest example with writer-director Pablo Berger’s masterful “Robot Dreams,” an animated feature that didn’t have any dialogue, but was able to convey a humorous and poignant story nonetheless.  It was the latest testament to what animation can do with just the power of its images.

Now, Latvian director Gints Zilbalodis accomplishes such a storytelling feat with his film “Flow.”  Bringing us wonderful animation and a beautiful narrative about survival, Zilbalodis delivers one of the best films of the year and THE best animated film of the year.

In a world that’s in ruins from an environmental disaster, a black cat, a Labrador Retriever, a capybara, a secretary bird, and a ring-tailed lemur try to stay alive as they traverse dangerous terrains.

Since there isn’t any dialogue, the animators did superb work in making the animals as expressive as possible.  Through the use of actual animalistic noises (which were recorded by sound designer Gurwal Coïc-Gallas) and the way the characters interact with each other, both in subtle and direct ways, you can see what’s going through their minds as they attempt to navigate a world that poses several deadly threats.  Without the animals talking, we’re encouraged to pay even closer attention to them as we watch and analyze their body language in the quieter moments and the bond between the five of them deepens.

The screenplay by Zilbalodis and Matīss Kaža may seem simple on the surface, but they offer many layers to a story about these unlikely friends and what they do to survive.  Every scene brings a new danger or a new character, leaving you absorbed in how this adventure will unfold.  With the story taking place in an unspecified country, this allows for the screenwriters to include animals from different parts of the world and incorporate a universality to the film’s message by having these species group together.  There are so many things that the writers allow us to read into and ponder the meaning of, leaving it solely up to the images instead of dialogue to get their points across, and the screenplay is all the more meaningful for it because of the chance to let us meditate on everything.

As a director, Zilbalodis makes sure that his animation stands out from what we usually see these days.  While most animated films typically use the most up-to-date 3D computer animation, this movie was constructed on an open-source software program called Blender.  The animals and environments are three-dimensional, but not in the glossy way that we see in most modern animation, but that’s not a complaint.  What we do see is something that shows you what can be done in animation without the biggest and brightest tools.  Here, we see the hard work that went into putting this movie entirely on the software.  The way in which Zilbalodis creates the visuals sweeps us away every bit as much as what you would see in any Pixar movie.  Between the movements of the animals and the details of the environments through which they travel, Zilbalodis keeps viewers invested in the adventure as we travel through forests, sail on rising waters, and visit crumbling civilizations.  During the film, Zilbalodis employs many single takes as he brings us across the different terrains of the film, allowing us to feel absorbed in the settings as we walk, run, swim, and fly with the characters.  Through all of this, he maintains an enchanting, yet tense tone that has us entertained by this unlikely fellowship, but also fearing for their survival.

Through its engaging visuals and minimalist, yet impactful sorry, “Flow” is a wordless movie that speaks volumes.

Grade: A