The ‘Flow’ of Zilbalodis’ Latest Silent Animation
On Tuesday, March 11th, I traveled to The Soho Screening Rooms to watch the premiere of Flow, an animated film co-produced by Latvian, French, and Belgian production studios. Winner of Best Animated Feature and Best International Feature Film at the Oscars, it is written and directed by Latvian filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis, best known for Away (2019), another silent animated work.
Flow is a PG-rated film with a runtime of 1 hour and 24 minutes. Without revealing any spoilers, a few aspects that stood out to me were, first, the fact that it is a silent animated film featuring high-quality, hand-painted-style characters. If the movie itself were a painting, it would without a doubt be in watercolour, as the screen is immediately filled with layered washes of colour—predominantly green—in order to emphasise what I perceived as a serene dystopian setting and time period.
The second notable aspect of the film is that there are no human characters at all. Instead, the protagonist is a small, wide-eyed grey cat that reluctantly embarks on an adventure after a great flood forces it to leave its home. Flow is a completely plot-driven film, the characters communicate purely through emotions rather than many sounds or anthropomorphic speech, avoiding the familiar trope seen in many other PG-rated animated films, such as The Secret Life of Pets or Madagascar, where character-driven adventures rely on dialogue to make the story clear to the audience.
The question then is how Zilbalodis managed to create a feature-length film centered on animals without using dialogue to convey complex emotions such as anxiety, affection, fear, and yearning for belonging, which are central ideas to the overall message of the story.
The brilliance of Zilbalodis’s current work lies in how each animal character symbolises an emotion or quality that doesn’t need to be explicitly said. Throughout literature and storytelling, animals have often been used as symbols of specific traits. For instance, with an unnamed cat as the main character, the film’s perspective revolves around themes of alienation, anxiety, and fear, which are all qualities commonly associated with cats in literary and cultural narratives. For example, expressions like ‘scaredy-cat’ or the idea that birds are ‘untrustworthy’ reflect these ingrained associations.
Dogs are also another central group of characters in the film, and offer another example of emotional symbolism. As natural predators, they instinctively chase, yet they are also known for their friendly, social nature. Thus, the film contrasts these qualities against those of the cat to further explore themes of identity. Because there are no words or human characters, viewers are then free to decide for themselves which perspective they relate to more, allowing the audience to create a personalised interpretation of the film.
At the start of the movie, I believed that it was about predators versus prey, male versus female experience, or something to do with oppressors versus the oppressed. But once again, intelligently, the use of silence allows one to assign their own meaning to the storyline depending on their worldview, (which also makes it quite difficult to criticise as the plot is ambiguous.)
As people, we’ve often thought about which animals we identify ourselves with, and this then comes along with the qualities we associate ourselves with, like being strong, weak, timid, or playful. One of my favourite examples of this was when a monkey character revealed his obsession with collecting mirrors, glasses, and reflective objects that he could see his face in. I found it funny how the movie used a monkey to portray the laughability of vanity in some people, and for others, even highlight the experience of having kleptomania.
There are many other animals included in the film as well, such as birds, whales, monkeys, and even a capybara, just to name a few. As mentioned, communication with the audience is achieved through the symbolism of each animal and how they interact with one another and the obstacles that nature continuously places in their path. The absence of human characters removes any sense of guilt from the viewer, as there is little trace of human life, which is one of the main reasons I would recommend this film if you’re ever looking for a deep-meaning, feel-good movie. This, in turn, allows the film to warm your heart by showcasing the purity of nature without the influence of mankind, making it easy to step away from everyday problems and fully immerse yourself in the world the artist has created.
My only criticism of the movie is that if it is intended for a younger audience (which I only assume based on the choice of characters, though I could be wrong and it may simply be a PG-rated feel-good movie for adults), it might be too long and too contemplative to hold a child’s interest, as younger viewers typically need talking characters along with vibrant visuals to stay engaged for longer durations.
Flow will be released in UK and Irish cinemas on March 21st 2025
Edited by Humaira Valera, Co-film & TV editor
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