FLOW (Straume) is another one of those animated features I ask for sometimes, the type that respects the medium enough to do something one-of-a-kind instead of just making up some cartoon guys and grafting them onto one of the handful of available formulas. This one is from Latvia but there’s no dubbed vs. subtitled issue because (hey, kinda like ROBOT DREAMS) it has no dialogue. It’s about a cat and some other animals wandering around, they are only anthropomorphized in the sense that they eventually pick up some unlikely talents like controlling the rudder of a boat. They’re 3-D computer animated in realistic settings but their designs are a bit stylized, lo-res almost. A style that looks great on a budget.
It follows a cat who’s out in a forest when he sees a pack of dogs catching, then fighting over, a fish. He makes the short-sighted choice to take the fish and run off, so he gets chased. There is fleeing and hiding, he seems to get away, and then the dogs are charging at him… past him. Oh shit, what are they running from?
Well, it’s a deer stampede. This poor cat almost gets Mufasa’d, it’s terrifying. And what are the deer running from? Turns out to be a tsunami. It’s kind of a disaster movie, I guess – an ensemble of animals getting thrown together in a situation and trying to survive.
(read the rest of this shit…)
