Flow (2024) Dir: Gints Zilbalodis
- Ridley Coote
- May 1
- 2 min read
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I was so excited to watch this animated adventure when I became aware of its imminent release in 2024. However, I had to wait for months to watch it, because of its much later UK release date. The film was written, directed, produced, edited, and composed by Gints Zilbalodis, among other things. The film won 'Best Animated Feature Film' at the Academy Awards, beating 'The Wild Robot', which I loved. My expectations were suitably high.
The film was made entirely on the free software Blender, which is absolutely incredible. The film looked immense, despite the relatively stripped back designs for the animals. It took me a second to get used to, but once I did, I was able to appreciate the visuals of the film so much more. It was beautiful, particularly in conjunction with the excellent and fantastical soundtrack.
The storytelling was emotive, visceral, and the ultimate "show don't tell" film. It was the epitome of trusting one's audience to understand a story, as well as what is being "said" without the use of any understandable dialogue whatsoever. It was an incredibly unique feature film experience. Some of it felt like watching an open-world, cinematic video game, but I honestly quite enjoyed that.
Overall, I found this to be a really wonderful piece of film. It mixed visual and contemplative storytelling to great effect, allowing the audience to form their own conclusions about various aspects of the story and its characters. I'm glad it was under the ninety minute mark, I think it would have been a little much if it was much longer. Regardless, this was a very good little fantasy adventure, and one I highly recommend in the cinema, if there's ever another opportunity to do so.
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