Flow, film-fable at the height of animals

With Flowthe gifted Latvian director Gints Zilbalodis creates a splendid animated film which accompanies a cat on the water in a post-apocalyptic universe.

“I honestly think that if you absolutely try to make a film that can please everyone, you end up making a film that doesn’t actually appeal to anyone. I believe a lot in cinema like very personal way of expression. Tending towards a smooth and generic approach to creation does not interest me. The key to honesty is specificity.” Personal and specific, the universe of Gints Zilbalodis, a brilliant Latvian filmmaker barely 30 years old, certainly is. In 2019, he signed with Away his first animated feature film, an astonishing silent initiatory journey riveted to a young man traveling an island on a motorbike in the company of a frail bird to escape a dark spirit and return home.

Six years later, he returned with Flowsingular philosophical and symbolic fable at the height of animalsalso devoid of words. Passed by the Cannes Film Festival, won multiple awards at the prestigious Annecy Festival, this second feature film even went so far as to win the Golden Globe for best animated film these days right under the nose of all the big productions Hollywood.

Team spirit

Taking place in a post-apocalyptic universe which seems deserted of any human presence, Flow is particularly linked to a lonely cat whose house is soon devastated by an impressive flood. He then finds refuge on a boat populated by various animal speciesand will have to learn to team up with them despite their differences. Together, they cross mystical landscapes and face countless dangers… “When I was in middle school,” Gints Zilbalodis remembers, “I had a cat myself. He inspired me at the time a short film about an animal afraid of water, Aqua. A few years ago, I decided to revisit these beginnings, and that’s how it began to be born Flow. This time, I wanted the distrust felt by the cat to also concern other animals. So it was about introducing more characters. Flow is undeniably my most ambitious project to date. For the first time in my career, I had to work as a team to make it, and I wanted the story of the film to reflect this reality as well. That is to say that the scenario of Flow talks about the learning necessary to work and live with othersto collaborate on a common project. Awaymy first feature film, centered on a character alone on an island, desperate for connection with other people. I understood after making it that this film spoke a lot about me and my desire to come out of my shell. In this sense, if Flow is not in itself a continuation of Awayhe extends the theme, by realizing this desire for connection with others.”

And the director clarified: “I thought that a cat would be the ideal protagonist for this story because it is a very independent animal basically, and it is interesting to show how it can learn to collaborate. Anduse water as a metaphor. That is to say, when the cat is afraid of others, the water is more aggressive and even frightening. And, when the cat learns to open up to others, the water becomes more welcoming and soothed, it drowns out the animal’s fears. In writing this second feature film, I anticipated all the debates, conflicts and anguish that would undoubtedly accompany the collective creation of this film. But, ultimately, the collaborative creative process of Flow was fortunately, for me, much more serene and cool than what the character experiences at the heart of the story.”

The animal kingdom

At Gints Zilbalodis, animals really behave like animals. They don’t speak or act like humans. But this refusal of anthropomorphism does not lead to pure realism either. “Let’s just say we’re really trying to make the animals as real as possible. The cat is a cat. The dog is a dog. We’ve already seen so many films with talking animals… I think we care more about the characters if they really behave like cats or dogs, with their characteristic innocence. We recognize in them our own domestic animals and that is close to our hearts. Concretely, we really studied the specific movements of animals but for then redraw them by hand, without motion capture For example. So it’s not a documentary either, and the hyper-realistic style doesn’t interest me much. It’s a personal film, and I like the idea of ​​the characters being able to make their own decisions. We amplified their abilities and their intelligence a little, so that they can have a real impact on the story and adapt to the universe in which they operate. I also like the idea of ​​developing a touch of magical realism, which is sometimes more suitable than the purest realism to convey certain emotions and truths. A certain stylization also brings, I believe, a greater attachment.”

On arrival, these animal characters do not fail, despite everything, to confront us with some of our human obsessions. This is the case, for example, of this lemur overcome by the fever of amassing objects, which inevitably refers to the materialism and consumerism characteristic of our capitalist societies.

“Yes, and each character evolves throughout the story. If the cat, for example, learns to trust more and rely on others, the dog develops more independence. It is the whole question of the place to find within a group that poses Flowand each animal was chosen for this purpose. The film also works a lot on reflections, in order to question the importance we give to the image we send back to others. All of this is, of course, a matter of group dynamics among humans.”