#flow review

[ankle-beez]

[cannibalismkeepsmealive]

this is the best film i have ever watched. it has a gorgeous animation style and the friendship between the cat and her peers is stunning. the scene where the crane’s wing got broke and the scene where the crane ascended into the sky was amazing. i am the 1. flow fan. the movie is flow, made in 2024. i actually cried at this film, and i don’t cry at films ever. 10/10

[gay-space-project]

watched flow, I might have cried the entire movie idk tho

[cloudwardhoe]

I saw the movie Flow! Some thoughts:

So if you don’t know, Flow is an animated movie that follows a lost cat who’s home was flooded and there is no dialogue other than than various animal noises

I am not really someone who can sit with no dialogue movies. Like I can barely do subtitles

But I think this was worth it.

The animation was beautiful

All of the animals personality’s really shined through

Like the cat was my cat. It’s little meows broke my heart because that’s exactly how my cat sounds

The cat and dog interactions were perfect

The lemur was so funny

The birds were jerks though. All the other animals acted (mostly) how you would expect them too. But would a bird actually intentionally break another birds wing? It was awful

It reminded me a lot of the game Stray; but with less robots and more animals.

I wish we did get a little glimpse of the human that had to be there at some point. I found them relatable without ever seeing them. Like I too would create a massive statue of my cat along with various other statues honoring her many cute little cat poses.

Overall I would recommend it. Maybe be cautious of taking kids who get bored easy. But highly recommend to animal lovers especially cat lovers. And anyone who loved stray. Nice little quiet movie during a hectic time of year.

[banghwa-moved]

HELTER SKELTER (2012) - dir. Mika Ninagawa SIREN by SUNMI (2018) - dir. Choi Yongseok

[rickchung]

Flow (Straume, dir. Gints Zilbalodis) x VIFF 2024.

Latvia's wordless animated fantasy follows a black cat escaping destruction alongside other animals on a raft after a flood and the unseen disappearance of all human life. Rendered through what resembles PlayStation 2-era visual graphics technology, the intentionally less detailed or complex animation style only enhances the naturalistic journey of animal survival at sea. It's a deceptively simple film full of splendour and majesty.

Screening at the 2024 Vancouver International Film Festival as part of the Showcase series at SFU Woodward's on Oct. 5 and the Vancouver Playhouse on Oct. 6.

Also screening at the VIFF Centre from Nov. 29–Dec. 11 & Jan. 11–18 and Rio Theatre from Jan. 6–11.

[moonymercutio]

Currently reading the "True Lives of The Fabulous Killjoys" comics as I got my hands on them at the bookstore (finally!!!) and GOSH the amount of inspiration I'm getting is crazy. The thing that makes the Killjoys and just Danger Days in general so cool/amazing is the fact that its so universal. Anyone can pick up a lasergun (metaphorically) and fight for what they believe in. Anyone can turn on the radio and listen to the world burning around them then laugh and turn the dial and hear their favorite song playing. Anyone can mourn and love and party and anger. As a LGBTQ+ teenager in America, with friends who are queer, poc, disabled, children of immigrants, and so many other things that are constantly being attacked and debated, there's something comforting (??) in knowing that change can happen, and that I can do something to help enact it, even if it's just donating $5 to a GoFundMe or hopping on a weekend train to the city and taking part in peaceful protests and rallies for the things I believe in.

in short... I am scared. But it's amazing how art can comfort, isn't it?

[notomys-mordax-blog]

Regrettably, I have not gotten all of my feelings about Veilguard out of my system. I've decided to cope with this by continuing to post novels regarding my thoughts about the narrative. Since I'm generally here for the characters, I'm organizing my thoughts on a character-by-character basis. I'm going to include my general opinions about the characters, things I liked and disliked about their involvement in the game, and thoughts I have about how I may have improved upon their narrative or things that might have made their stories more effective (for me). 

Part 1 Lace Harding

Overall: 5/10

She's a really cute character with an adorable design. Say what you will about the change in art style, but I find the ladies of Veilguard to be absolutely gorgeous. I also liked the visual storytelling that we had with her design. I could really imagine her adding the little embroidered details to her clothing while away on a scouting mission. 

Lace is our returning companion. When this was revealed, I thought that she was a good choice. She was a fan favorite in DA:I and struck the right balance between being familiar, without having too much pre-existing plot that would need to be incorporated into the story. She's the cute girl-next-door, with some really interesting undertones of having been raised in a farm with all of the bloody pragmatism maintaining a farm requires. 

Before we dive into her story arc, I think it's worthwhile to address her personality. While I don't disagree with the sentiment that she'd be different around Rook (a co-worker) versus the Inquisitor (a literal holy figure), I don't think they've struck the right balance between bubbly and cute with the salt-of-the-earth pragmatism we saw when she was younger. This feels odd, because the situation in veilguard is just as, if not more, pressing than the situation in inquisition.

The romance between Taash and Lace didn't really do it for me. I think there are some interesting parallels between the characters, specifically they are both bicultural (although have very different experiences with what this entails). I also think it's interesting that Taash is very much a person who has gotten comfortable with their own anger, while Lace (who hypothetically has this anger) isn't comfortable with letting her friendly and bubbly mask drop. I like the implication that Lace is the kind of person that people underestimate and mischaracterize, Taash has a very direct kind of sexuality that seems at odds with the "girl-next-door" persona that Lace usually carries, but unfortunately I just didn't buy the chemistry between these two.  

Her story arc consists of getting whacked with a magical MacGuffin and obtaining mysterious magical powers. These powers reveal the painful history of the dwarven people, in which the proto-elves magically lobotomized their ancestors in order to create physical bodies. The dwarves in the DA series suffer a problem that seems pretty common to a lot of dwarves in fantasy series. They have the most fascinating lore and interesting culture, but they never really seem to fit properly in the narrative. The role of the Deep Roads with the wardens helped tie Orzammar to the main conflict better in DA:O, but one of the main problems I had with Harding's story was that there was this really fascinating lore reveal that has been hinted at since the beginning of the series, but it's never really tied back to the main conflict. There is essentially a throw-away line in which harding muses about how messed up it is that the entire economy of modern dwarven society is essentially (unknowingly) mining the bodies of their ancestors. 

The end result is an interesting narrative beat that doesn't really hit right. It feels disconnected with the main conflict, and literally absorbing her race's entire ancestral trauma without any real consequence or impact on her characterization. I'm of the opinion that the lore reveal was really interesting, and something that the series has been building up for a while. 

This is where I'd put my thoughts about Lace's Faction, if it existed

Lace is the only companion who doesn't belong to a faction. 

She's also well positioned to be a bridge between South Thedas and the North, she could have acted as a proxy for the player and been used to explain differences between how the previous games characterized Northern Thedas (especially Tevinter!) and what we experienced. While I believe she has a line or two about how poorly elves are treated in the south, I think this was a largely underutilized aspect of her character.

This post is already upwards of 2k words, so I'll save a more in depth analysis of my feelings about what happened with Southern Thedas and the Inquisitor. Let's just say that I laughed (negative) when Emmrich and Harding decided to go on their camping trip almost immediately after I received notice that the South was completely overrun with Blight and on the Brink of collapse. 

I think part of my longing for a dwarven faction is that in fantasy stories, dwarves often have super cool lore that isn't really explored. DA:O was a bit of an exception, because of the importance that the Deep Roads had to the story, but in the later games ... it doesn't really feel like the dwarves are super related to what's happening in Thedas. With all of the big worldbuilding reveals about the Titans, it would have been nice to have a dwarven faction, and Kal-Sharok is right there. I've been dying to see more of this society since they were first introduced, and I feel like they really would have been an interesting thematic inclusion, given that the entire world is in danger of being blighted. I go into more depth about why I think a dwarven faction would have improved Lace's story later. 

How would I fix this?

Whenever I find something narratively unsatisfying, my brain immediately jumps to fix-it mode. 

So I think the first problem has to do with the characterization of Harding. As mentioned earlier, I always understood her as being a character who is outwardly really bubbly, but also very ruthlessly pragmatic. I don't think this characterization was really well portrayed in Veilguard. Making it more clear that Lace has a brutal side would really go a long way in making the Titan's anger and grief feel more impactful, and making it more clear that she has some darker impulses that could make her embracing her anger dangerous. We get a taste of this in some of her banter's with Taash, but I think I would have liked to see her act on some of these impulses. It's odd that Neve and Lucanis are the only companions who can be hardened. This feels like a perfect place to Harden Harding (heh). 

So, we tweak Harding's characterization and add some gameplay impacts. Better, but Harding's story still feels like it's dangling in space. 

My first impulse was that Harding was the wrong character to tell this story. Narratively, the story doesn't really take advantage of her connection to the Inquisition or Southern Thedas. After all, Lace Harding is a surface dwarf with no real connection to her dwarven heritage, she identifies much more strongly with being ethnically Ferelden than being dwarven. Furthermore she is the most devoutly Andrastian member of the party. Surely a character who identifies as more ethnically dwarven would be better suited to tell this story, why was the Lace chosen when Dagna was right there? 

Given the overall narrative of Veilguard, I think the best way to make the story of the Titans feel connected to the main plot would be to have a dwarven faction as described above. However that would involve some heavy narrative shifting. Without shifting too many major beats, I feel like Harding's story could have been made much more impactful if we were asked to choose "what's next?" for her. She's been given the burden of learning traumatic ancestral knowledge for a group of people she's ethnically related to, but not culturally related to. I think it could have been much more interesting if we gave Taash's choice to Lace. Once the Gods are defeated and the heroes can go home, what does she want to do? 

Taash will probably get their own novel later, but I found it really thematically goofy that the thematic thesis of their character involves "gender isn't a binary, but culture is (apparently)". While thinking about Taash and Lace as a couple, I considered that one of the commonalities the two characters have is the fact that they are visibly part of an ethnic minority that they don't really fully relate to. If anything, Lace would probably experience this to a greater degree than Taash because she's a surface dwarf. Unlike Taash who was raised by a person with a very strong connection to their culture, Lace and her mother feel very integrated with Ferelden society (as mentioned, they've even adopted the majority religion of the region). 

Does Lace Harding return to her mother and the country that she obviously loves, or does she embrace her role as an "oracle" and return to dwarven society (either Kal-Sharok or Orzzamar would have worked)? Unlike Rivaini or Qunari culture which could easily exist in a blended capacity, the cultural taboos of dwarven societies could explain why this needs to be a binary choice.

I also think that this could have made the choice to sacrifice Harding a little bit more impactful. Part of the reason why it hurts to lose Davrin is that you lose Assan too. I think if it was more clear what Harding's future looked like, it would have been more impactful to lose it.

Closing Thoughts

Lace Harding is a good example of a few of the problems with Veilguard. Taken on her own, she's a likeable and fun character, but her characterization feels somewhat shallow compared to what is right there, simmering underneath the surface. Objectionable aspects of the character are smoothed down. In Cullen's bad ending it's implied that Lace straight up mercy-kills him! My girl gets stuff done (with a smile, even if those things are ... emotionally challenging)  If you squint you can kind of see that the implications are still there, but it's so subtle that it truly feels like head-canons are doing the heavy lifting. 

As an aside, two aspects that I think negatively impact Lace's character are the general omission of the Chantry in Veilguard's story, as well as the narrative decisions made around the Inquisitor and Southern Thedas. 

Her freckles are cute tho.

[internet-goblin]

I went to see Flow the other day and boy oh boy, this movie is a masterpiece of animation. It has everything - beauty, heart, great music, amazing sights and the characters. Ooooh the characters.

There is not a single spoken line of dialogue, not a single human, it's all animals. And yet they say so much with their body language and their eyes. You can tell so much about each animal just from the way they behave. The cat is fearful and doesn't trust others. The capybara is terminally chill. The lemur is greedy and protective. And they all stick to these characters. They act like real people. Their personalities clash, they are dicks to each other, they bicker and fight and it makes it so much sweeter when they eventually overcome these differences.

It's such a simple movie about a cat on an adventure. It's made mostly by one guy and his small team in fucking blender of all things. It didn't even have storyboards and it was the directors second feature film. And it's absolutely briliant! This year will be the first one when I'll pay attention to the Oscars since Flow is supposed to be there.

10/10 - go see it, go cry over a stupid animated cat movie.

[mixmangosmangoverse]

Flow is The Best Movie of 2024

Ok, maybe that's not true. I haven't seen every film from 2024, and my focus is largely on animation. I'm sure other films, particularly Memoirs of A Snail and Look Back, might be better. But truthfully, there is no other film I have seen in 2024 that was as beautiful as Flow

Maybe we can go back a bit. What did I watch last year? Not much. 2024 was a dull year for me, a year full of fear where I couldn't feel happy much. I found myself much more engrossed in music and books than film or tv. I had become addicted to Miracle Musical's beautiful—and only—album, Hawaii Part ii. I had finally started my journey to read more horror by looking online, finding a relatively accessible horror novel that I was interested in. It was an impactful novel, one that I may write a review for one day. But after that, I went back in time. I re-read the books of my childhood. I started with my favorite childhood book, The Giver. It's a book I still cherish to this day. The sequel, Gathering Blue, is as strong as I remember. The other two, however, I have mixed feelings on. Feelings I'll likely express one day, as these books truly made me who I am

But, did I watch any movies in 2024, besides Flow? Well, yes, but not much. The highlight for many this year would undoubtedly be The Wild Robot. It's a beautiful film, no doubt, but I couldn't help but feel it was held back by the requirements of a typical animated film. The heartfelt story it told didn't require some of the more extreme action scenes it had, and ultimately I feel like my tastes have evolved past most Hollywood animated films, even with as good as The Wild Robot was

In terms of my highlight of the year, it would have to go to I Saw The TV Glow. A fantastic, horrifying film that uses the newfound wave of lost media to create a truly unique story about the fears of not being your true self. I have no doubt in my mind that this film will become a classic for the LGBT+ community, especially trans folks, and that more than that this film will be held up as the crowning jewel of analog horror on the big screen.

Other films I saw in 2024 didn't give me as much to talk about.

Deadpool and Wolverine was a fun novelty, but also a reminder of why I have issues with many superhero films, especially now

Inside Out 2, for as much as it earned, to me paled in comparison to the original. While I could go on forever, the biggest mark against it is that I did not cry once, even as someone currently dealing with anxiety. I still cry from the first

Transformers One is a fun introduction to the franchise, with great, inventive visuals and a very solid cast. It won't be a movie I return to much, but I had fun watching it with my brother

Speaking of films I won't rewatch, but I had fun watching with family, The Garfield Movie is a fun time that doesn't require you to think. If you turn your brain off and simply let yourself have fun, you'll have a good time

The movie aside from Flow that gave me the most to think about was Orion and The Dark. A seemingly harmless kid's film, yet nonetheless one that I couldn't stop thinking about. Once you realize the writer and director, the direction the movie takes makes more sense, but I can't help but feel like it should've stuck to the simple premise it introduced. I will always appreciate kids movies that do something unique, but sometimes, the formulas are there for a reason.

That's certainly enough preamble. I have set the scene for what I watched last year, so let's finally get into what exactly Flow is

Flow is a movie you may have heard of if you pay attention to film festivals and awards. A Latvian and French/Belgian co-production from director Gints Zilbalodis, this film gained acclaim for its unique presentation. A film completely devoid of dialogue, populated only by animal noises and a fantastic soundtrack, the movie tells the story of a cat who gets lost when the forest it resides in begins flooding

But that synopsis is very reductive. I'll explain the plot more in detail in just a moment, but that synopsis doesn't do service to the experience of the film. Watching this film, in a small local indie theater, surrounded by people of all ages, was one of the best theater going experiences I've had in years. This film has a truly remarkable grasp on tension. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. The animation, apparently made almost entirely in Blender, puts even many of Disney's recent pictures to shame. The care, effort and detail that went into portraying the animals and their emotions is something I haven't seen in years. This is a film that forces you to think. Not only about the characters —their inner worlds, as there is no dialogue, no subtitles, nothing to clue us in besides their body language and noises— but about the meaning of everything

The first meaning that jumped out to me when watching the film was a biblical allegory. The world is flooded, completely overtaken by the sea, all the while a variety of animals escape on a boat. It's easy to see an inspiration from the tale of Noah's Ark, although I won't claim it's intentional. According to director Gints Zilbalodis, this film is an allegory of his rise in the animation and film scene. It starts with a lone character who survives on their own, mimicking how he made his first film Away by himself, and slowly builds up a team that they must learn to work with. In that way, this film is a parable about friendship. In the same interview he says that that is the meaning he has given, that the film is about an introverted individual learning to make friends and about a group learning to set aside their differences to work together.

But it would be reductive to say the film is only about friendship. The film is absolutely ripe with symbolism. The aforementioned parallels to the biblical story of Noah's Ark is only the tip of the iceberg. From the first moments of the film, we are shown a world without humans. The cat lives in an abandoned home, full of unfinished cat memorabilia. Giant cat statues are in the forest. The house's window is broken, showing the disrepair of it. No humans appear in the film, not even a glimpse of them. The only thing approximating a human is a statue, one that looks to be of a Buddhist figure, half sunken in the water with its hand reaching above. The animals travel through canals and cities, all abandoned, all designed in such a way that they could be anywhere from Italy to Indonesia. Giant, unknowable spikes stand tall in the distance.

Even beyond the absence of humans and the bizarre world they inhabit, there is symbolism to be found in every moment of the film. The lemur, who is obsessed with hoarding objects and a mirror in particular, a mirror that gives it admiration by the other lemurs, yet abandons it by the end to help the cat. The fish that the cat struggles to catch at first, stolen by birds after being given one, only to catch some successfully in a moment of exhilaration, only to lose them again as the dogs they hesitantly invite eats them all. And of course, there are the lights that the Secretary Bird follows, the lights that they disappear into by the end, almost as if they ascended to heaven, and the water stopping shortly after. There is the whale, a foreboding, horrifying creature that is peaceful the whole time, and yet ends up suffering once the waters go down. The entire climax, where the world grows anew; mountains and forests rising from the depths, trees growing in seconds, chasms of the water left below as this world is remade. The cat's disturbing dream of the same deer that warned it of the flood roaming in circles.

The film has layers upon layers, full of meanings one can extract from it. Whether religious or simply about the depths of friendship, this is a level of detail and thought behind a film that you would never find in a Hollywood picture, let alone an animated one for families.

It is for that reason that I lied when I said I'd give a summary— this is a film that can't be summarized. Oh, sure, there is a plot, a series of events. But the film is not that. It is the experience. The wonders. To simply explain the film would be to remove the experience of it. I think it's rare, in this day of overly complex plots, of spectacle, of stories that can be easily explained in a single clickbaity YouTube video, to have a movie which forces you to simple view a world, without explaining anything. Nothing in Flow is every explained, instead it is up to you to interpret everything you see. There is no spectacle in this movie. There is a climax, but it is not an action scene. It is a quiet moment of the bird lifted up to the sky, gone in a moment. It is the ground lifting up again, a moment grand in scale yet intimate and terrifying in its focus on the cat. The only thing approximating an action climax is the animals rescuing those stuck on the boat, but even then, the primary emotion is tension, not excitement. Flow is not a movie you can easily describe in a summary, and yet it's all the stronger for it

Hand in hand with that is the lack of dialogue. Mentioned a handful of times already, Flow is a movie devoid of any dialogue, completely and utterly. There are no subtitles. There aren't even words on a sign somewhere. The film is not silent; populated by animal noises and a score that sells every emotion, but the lack of dialogue may make it seem inaccessible to people. To me, however, the opposite is true. The lack of dialogue is what kept me invested. It is easy in many films, especially for a family audience, to tune out as the dialogue can be very heavy handed. This isn't an issue, movies for kids need dialogue to be clearer, but even movies for older audiences can fall into the trap of too much useless dialogue. Dialogue and words that take you out of the moment, instead of pulling you in. It's in that way that Flow succeeds completely. Ironically, by lacking dialogue, it makes every sound matter more. Every noise an animal makes becomes important, because that's the only sound made. Every new piece of the score feels more important, more noticable. And, of course, the animation and visual storytelling shines with this lack of dialogue. We are forced to pay attention to every movement. To every change of scene, to every new beat. I'm finding lately that a lack of dialogue, or even sound, actually helps me focus a lot more on a piece of visual media, and nowhere is that more apparent with Flow.

But there is another reason I declared Flow the best film of 2024. And it is because of how it personally impacted me. Flow came at just the right moment, because this film made me realize things I didn't even know I felt.

The story of Flow is about friendship. It's about companionship and working together. About putting aside differences to achieve a common goal. It's about the bonds of animals, people, through even the most impossible of situations. Sitting with this film in my mind made me realize the companionship I'm seeking, the kind I'm lacking.

It is something I'll get to at the end, but in a way, this film represents a fantasy of friendship. We want to hang out with others, to make truly meaningful memories with them. We want to believe we can meet others who will truly stick by us to the end. In that way, each animal in the journey represents a different type of friendship

The cat is an introvert, a loner, learning to cooperate for the first time. It begins afraid of others, running away from them, yelling and hissing at them. But as the film goes on, it opens up to others. It becomes a true companion, and becomes the uniting heart of the group

The capybara is a person who goes with the flow. It rarely does anything in the film, besides steering the boat in a line. But it is there to help the others calm down. It sleeps most of the trip, and yet its calmness helps the others

The lemur wants validation. It collects trinkets, remnants of humanity, almost in a show of vanity. It protects its treasures from others, instigating fights. It holds the mirror up as its best treasure, and even shows it off to other lemurs. When the world regrows, it is off with a group of lemurs who all stand behind it as it looks in the mirror. And yet, it also sees the cat. And so the lemur leaves, to join the cat. Because the lemur realized that the validation it wanted wasn't a material item or superficial validation, but true companionship

The Labrador retriever is the extrovert. Happy, excitable, full of energy, constantly wanting to play. It pushes the others out of their comfort zones. It is the friend who forces you to do new things. But it is also a friend who stays loyal. At one point, the animals come across the other dogs that chased the cat in the beginning, and the Labrador retriever invites them over. The dogs proceed to eat the fish that the cat had just caught, but seem to play along. That is, until the ending, the climax with the boat. As everyone rushes to pull the boat back to save the animals stuck there, the other dogs get distracted by a rabbit. And they leave. The other dogs run away in a moment of peril. But the Labrador retriever doesn't. It stays behind, because it is a true friend. The other dogs, however, are the false friends. Friends out of convenience. Those who stick around only when you give them something, and then leave when they find something better.

It was watching that moment, in the climax, where something clicked. I had been a victim to those dogs. Many times in my life, I had friends who only wanted something from me. I had friends who would abandon me the second I became "difficult". The moment my disability or way of behaving was inconvenient. It is a harsh lesson that there are always those that take you for granted, but also a reminder that there are those who will stay by through thick and thin. Those that are truly loyal, that truly care. But there is another, darker reason why Flow resonated with me.

2024 has been a horrible year for the Jewish community. After the attacks on October 7, we felt as the rest of the world shunned us. The rest of the world are those dogs— those who only stood by when it was convenient. Online friends who I thought cared about me turned on a dime when I said where I'm from. People who looked to me, for my perspective as a Jewish writer, immediately left. They went to me to talk about representation, as that is a topic I care about. These people said they cared too. And then they abandoned real, living Jews when the time mattered.

I have been lonely since the pandemic, but 2023 and 2024 where the years I felt the loneliest. But, they were also the years I found the other animals. I found those who, despite everything, did care about me. Who despite everything they were told, stood by me. They were few and far between, but they certainly made a difference. 2023, despite everything, was a year I did find new friends in my own community. Even with as bad as everything got, I did find a community.

The real beauty of Flow is a theme I've loved for years. I think it was Adventure Time that introduced the idea to me, and it's a simple one. It's the idea that... The world can get better. No matter what

The world could end. But it could get better.

You could lose someone you love. But it could get better.

Society could turn on you. But it could get better. No matter what. It could get better. That's an idea I've had to hold onto for years. As my life got worse, I told myself it'd get better. This attitude has helped me, more times than I could count. And it did, in small ways. After telling myself all of 2020 that it would get better, 2021 ended up the best year of this decade so far. But that didn't last long. Ever since 2023, it's been difficult to imagine things getting better. Not just for me, but for everyone. I surely wasn't the only one who wished for a scenario similar to one seen in the movie. Wishing for an end of the world. A moment where we could forget the troubles of society and simply meet others.

There is a reason people dream of going out for adventure, and a reason stories about adventure always form parties. In a way, I believe it's similar to the desire to live through an apocalypse. We want an opportunity to forget all our current worries, to go out to new places with new people. There is something so captivating, almost... Thrilling, enticing, about the idea of the entire world ending, yet finding comfort despite that.

For many in my community, October 7 may as well have been that end of the world. And as we continue into 2025, that "end of the world" will surely affect more people. But as this movie affirmed to me, it could always get better. The world of Flow may be devoid of humans, but life is still brimming. The bird may have died, but in its departure it brought back the land.

And with that...Well.

There's one more scene we have to talk about. You see, Flow doesn't end with the boat rescue. That's the climax, but the true ending is much less upbeat. The cat ventures deep in the forest, the others following it. And they find the whale. Washed ashore. Left without water. Many messages can be deciphered from this ending. The safety of one may bring harm to others, is an obvious lesson. It could be a lesson on caring for the friends who stayed behind, who didn't talk much but who helped you. It could be an allegory of disability, and how the whale finally had a place to freely roam, that was soon taken away from it. It could be about balance, how for one good thing to happen, something must be sacrificed.

But the movie has an end credits scene. It's not anything to go crazy for... Well, that is, if you care about what end credits scenes are typically for. But to me, it means everything. This scene depicts the whale swimming. Is this depicting the time of the flood? Or, as I interpret it, is it showing that the whale found more water after all? Perhaps, realizing how the whale was suffering now, the cat stood up for it and helped it find water. Maybe, this is the whale in heaven. Whatever this scene truly depicts, it reinforces the theme; Things will get better. Even the whale got better.

Keep your head high, because things could always get better

[saxuphomnb]

One of the most amazing things about the movie Flow (2024( is how much it makes you care about the animal characters despite them being barely anthropomorphized. They aren't the Watership Down or Warrior Cats kind of animals. Pretty much the whole movie, they behave and interact with the world like an animal would. And we still get emotionally invested. It doesn't connect with my humanity, it's deeper than that. It connects with me as a living thing in the world, as an animal.

[nijigasakilove]

Flow ✅ 4.5/5 Kinda conflicted. I like Wild Robot more as a story, but it’s hard to argue against Flow being the most artistically impressive piece this year and winning the Oscar. The staff did the most with the least and the fact a movie made in a free software is even considered here should be a win.

The lack of dialogue meant the film relies on direction and physical expressions from the characters to convey what’s going on which is insanely impressive to do in this medium. I also love that these weren’t anthropomorphic creatures but regular animals making their way in a post apocalyptic society. Beautiful film and not too long.

[technicalknockout]

life update before the exam void claims me again

deltarune good. yet to play but already bought it. soundtrack good tenna very good. tadc new episode also good. jax and pomni frenship ragatha lore drop lovely. i miss tko

[parasociallyawkward]

My interpretation of this film is that some problems are bigger than us, even if we set aside our differences and work together to resolve these issues.

We can't always depend on others to fully step up and contribute as much as they could.

Some of us may be somewhat capable on our own, but we all have our limitations. Having some unique perspectives and skills always yields stronger solutions.

Sometimes things eventually work out, even if we aren't all able to see the end results. There will always be losses.

So, do we just idly standby and watch it all pile up until there's no way out or do we acknowledge the shared concerns that indiscriminately weigh down on the world?

[twinklingwatermellon]

815/1,000 words done with two hours to go

[the---hermit]

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio

I read most of this book in two days. I really just spent two whole days diving into this book and I had such a good time. I don't know why I waited this long. I read a few so called dark academia books in the past few years, and this has definitely been on of my favourites. I definitely liked it more than The Secret History, the setting is indeed similar but at the end of the day the stories are two whole different things and this one was way closer to what I normally like. It was fast paced and captivating, I ended up loving the characters and their dynamics. I liked it so much that in my rating I ignored the fact that I thought the plot was a bit predictable, and just gave it five stars. I had a lovely reading experience, I hadn't fallen into a book like this in a good while and it was so good to do it again. I normally don't love the first person narration, but to be honest this book made me reconsider it. It's one of those books I will probably reread in the future.