Flow (2024) is a hard movie to describe. Lacking dialog, the audience must interpret the scenery and actions of the animals that appear, because there are no humans, and the film implies that, in this alternate Universe, they either never existed, or they’re gone without explanation. The cities the animals encounter in the course of their quest for survival look like some of the cities built by the old South American civilizations: monumental stone work, pyramids, and etc, and the South American capybara, a giant rodent, is among the lead characters.
It’s all animated, and seems to be of superior quality, although my Arts Editor did mutter something about Water doesn’t look like that! at one point. The animals seemed quite accurate in their movements; the behaviors, on the other hand, are a trifle difficult to believe unless we accord the lead characters, which are a cat, a dog, a capybara, a lemur, and a secretarybird, an increasing intelligence as time passes. That’s not unreasonable.
Near the end, the movie seemingly lapses into incoherence. Perhaps more sagacious viewers than I grasped the meaning of the last few incidents, but the lack of satisfying explanation, while not necessary in every story, see Last And First Men (2020), just increased my frustration in this particular case.
All that said, the art is excellent, and the story is engrossing. I can’t quite Recommend it, but it’s darn good.
