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The movie Flow
Maybe you've seen the trailer for this wordless animated film about a black cat in a post-human world. (If not, here's a link.) The visuals were so evocative and beautiful--and the cat so like my own cat--that I was very excited to see it.
Yesterday I did see it, and it was indeed beautiful to look at ...
but there were things about the film that really bothered me--which appears to be internet sacrilege to confess. The closest thing I came to finding criticism of Flow was a review from a guy who said that while he loved it, his children were frightened and confused by it. (Dude, I so hear your kids. I so do.) He apologized profusely to the internet for his kids' reaction but humbly suggested maybe bearing it in mind if you decide to have your children watch it.
I think most fundamentally what bothered me was the film's narrative incoherence and the sense I got that I'm supposed to be so awed by the beauty (and it really is beautiful) that I don't ask for more. But the beauty can't hide the implications that are set up, and if you follow those, you end up--well, I ended up--unhappy.
And now I'm going to write further about all that, so if you've loved the film and don't want to read a negative opinion, stop here! And if you don't want spoilers, stop here too.
How the worldbuilding fails-- a list
1. There are no people anywhere, and all that remains of human presence is a sculptor's house and outdoor sculptures, a flooded city that contains only ancient architecture--looks like a blend of Venice and the Old City in Sanaa, Yemen (absolutely no concrete or steel anywhere)--and boats, many boats. That's it. No other works of human hands, and no corpses. And yet people's disappearance seems to be relatively recent: the sculptor's table has a sketch of the cat on it, plus a block of wood with the beginnings of a carving, and the wood shavings are still there. Also the dogs and the cat in film look absolutely like people's well-cared-for pets, not like pets that have had to adjust to life out in the wild. Oh but maybe that's because it's so bucolic? Fish can be caught with ease and there are, um ... rabbits around? Yeah ... maybe that's it.
2. The cat (and all the animals) are taken by surprise by the tsunami of water you see in the trailer, but one of the first shots you see in the film is of a rowboat up in a tree, which implies this cycle flooding and receding has happened before. Maybe they don't remember? Mmmm, okay. These are pretty clever animals--the ones we follow, anyway. They know how to use the tiller of a boat. But okay. Maybe it happened before they were born or something. But this time round, the water rises so high, it's over the top of the sculptor's house. As you see in the trailer, a boat comes by, and the cat jumps in.
... But what about all the animals that don't get into a boat? Just before the wall of water comes, there's a stampede of deer. What happens to them? And what about the rabbits. How about them? We're apparently not supposed to think about these others. Keep your eye on the cat! Worry about whether the cat is going to drown or not! Those other animals are just part of the scenery.
In the end--some four or five (or possibly more) days later, the water recedes like a drain plug has been pulled, and guess what? there are no dead animals anywhere, and no mud or debris. We do see some waterlogged ground give way and some trees fall over, but no sign that anything has been torn up by its roots by that violent rush. (Similarly, when the cat was caught up in the water, there were no dangerous bits in it and no other flood-tossed terrestrial creatures. Just fish.) It's the most sanitized flood/tsunami ever. Maddeningly so. When the water drains away, there are deer and rabbits again; the flowers and grass are as fresh and bright as ever ... HOW?!
3. At the end of the movie, the animals lose their boat. So what are they going to do the next time there's a flood/tsunami? As I say, there was a rowboat in the trees in the opening shot--the film is telling you this keeps happening. But don't worry I guess?? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
4. Reviewers keep mentioning the majestic whales and failing to say that these are not ordinary whales. They are Changed whales, with way more fins and dangly bits. But these are the only transformed animals we see. What does it meeean? Whyyyy? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Who cares, I guess--sure are pretty.
One of these whale creatures saves the cat at one point. And then at the very end of the movie, there's one of them beached from the draining of the water. It's dying. We see this. Annnd... then we shift away from it. What? That's it? Again, whyyyy? Death happens, my child.. Yes, sure, but this film has assiduously avoided actually showing it. Why this one creature? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
5. There's only that one death, but there's also an animal who's assumed bodily into the Great Beyond. Maybe because it selflessly helped the cat at the price of shunning by its own kind. Maybe assumption into the Great Beyond is its reward. Or something. It's a weird touch when everything else is kinda-sorta naturalistic. But okay, I guess. The cat gets lifted up too but apparently its work on Earth is not yet done, because it gets set back down again.
6. It's also weird that we seem to be in a temperate woodland sort of climate at the start of the film, but the animals that the cat joins up with/that join up with it include a capybara, a lemur, and a secretarybird. And at one point the capybara secures bananas from some half-submerged banana trees. This sounds like the sort of thing people call whimsical, and I sit here just wondering how it works. Because animals' (and plants') forms and habits aren't just costumes. They relate to where they live--we're part of natural systems. And if you're going to just set that aside--like you're setting aside the damage that floods of water do--then why am I even worrying about the rainstorms and the animals being cold and whether they have enough to eat and whether they're going to drown? It's all so arbitrary!
It *is* beautiful the way the film captures the animals' behaviors. The cat and the dogs seem so on target, I wonder if it's also true about the capybara--do capybaras really fall over like that when they want to sleep? And it's fun to see the lemurs with their treasure. And it's beautiful to watch the whale-like creatures breach and see the multitudes of fish. And it's true what's said about the overall gist of the movie, that it shows the animals learning to work together and becoming a family.
But what's going to happen to them? And what about all the deer that keep getting drowned but whose bodies are tidily out of sight? And what about the beached whale-creature? Those are the points I get stuck on.
Yesterday I did see it, and it was indeed beautiful to look at ...
but there were things about the film that really bothered me--which appears to be internet sacrilege to confess. The closest thing I came to finding criticism of Flow was a review from a guy who said that while he loved it, his children were frightened and confused by it. (Dude, I so hear your kids. I so do.) He apologized profusely to the internet for his kids' reaction but humbly suggested maybe bearing it in mind if you decide to have your children watch it.
I think most fundamentally what bothered me was the film's narrative incoherence and the sense I got that I'm supposed to be so awed by the beauty (and it really is beautiful) that I don't ask for more. But the beauty can't hide the implications that are set up, and if you follow those, you end up--well, I ended up--unhappy.
And now I'm going to write further about all that, so if you've loved the film and don't want to read a negative opinion, stop here! And if you don't want spoilers, stop here too.
How the worldbuilding fails-- a list
1. There are no people anywhere, and all that remains of human presence is a sculptor's house and outdoor sculptures, a flooded city that contains only ancient architecture--looks like a blend of Venice and the Old City in Sanaa, Yemen (absolutely no concrete or steel anywhere)--and boats, many boats. That's it. No other works of human hands, and no corpses. And yet people's disappearance seems to be relatively recent: the sculptor's table has a sketch of the cat on it, plus a block of wood with the beginnings of a carving, and the wood shavings are still there. Also the dogs and the cat in film look absolutely like people's well-cared-for pets, not like pets that have had to adjust to life out in the wild. Oh but maybe that's because it's so bucolic? Fish can be caught with ease and there are, um ... rabbits around? Yeah ... maybe that's it.
2. The cat (and all the animals) are taken by surprise by the tsunami of water you see in the trailer, but one of the first shots you see in the film is of a rowboat up in a tree, which implies this cycle flooding and receding has happened before. Maybe they don't remember? Mmmm, okay. These are pretty clever animals--the ones we follow, anyway. They know how to use the tiller of a boat. But okay. Maybe it happened before they were born or something. But this time round, the water rises so high, it's over the top of the sculptor's house. As you see in the trailer, a boat comes by, and the cat jumps in.
... But what about all the animals that don't get into a boat? Just before the wall of water comes, there's a stampede of deer. What happens to them? And what about the rabbits. How about them? We're apparently not supposed to think about these others. Keep your eye on the cat! Worry about whether the cat is going to drown or not! Those other animals are just part of the scenery.
In the end--some four or five (or possibly more) days later, the water recedes like a drain plug has been pulled, and guess what? there are no dead animals anywhere, and no mud or debris. We do see some waterlogged ground give way and some trees fall over, but no sign that anything has been torn up by its roots by that violent rush. (Similarly, when the cat was caught up in the water, there were no dangerous bits in it and no other flood-tossed terrestrial creatures. Just fish.) It's the most sanitized flood/tsunami ever. Maddeningly so. When the water drains away, there are deer and rabbits again; the flowers and grass are as fresh and bright as ever ... HOW?!
3. At the end of the movie, the animals lose their boat. So what are they going to do the next time there's a flood/tsunami? As I say, there was a rowboat in the trees in the opening shot--the film is telling you this keeps happening. But don't worry I guess?? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
4. Reviewers keep mentioning the majestic whales and failing to say that these are not ordinary whales. They are Changed whales, with way more fins and dangly bits. But these are the only transformed animals we see. What does it meeean? Whyyyy? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Who cares, I guess--sure are pretty.
One of these whale creatures saves the cat at one point. And then at the very end of the movie, there's one of them beached from the draining of the water. It's dying. We see this. Annnd... then we shift away from it. What? That's it? Again, whyyyy? Death happens, my child.. Yes, sure, but this film has assiduously avoided actually showing it. Why this one creature? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
5. There's only that one death, but there's also an animal who's assumed bodily into the Great Beyond. Maybe because it selflessly helped the cat at the price of shunning by its own kind. Maybe assumption into the Great Beyond is its reward. Or something. It's a weird touch when everything else is kinda-sorta naturalistic. But okay, I guess. The cat gets lifted up too but apparently its work on Earth is not yet done, because it gets set back down again.
6. It's also weird that we seem to be in a temperate woodland sort of climate at the start of the film, but the animals that the cat joins up with/that join up with it include a capybara, a lemur, and a secretarybird. And at one point the capybara secures bananas from some half-submerged banana trees. This sounds like the sort of thing people call whimsical, and I sit here just wondering how it works. Because animals' (and plants') forms and habits aren't just costumes. They relate to where they live--we're part of natural systems. And if you're going to just set that aside--like you're setting aside the damage that floods of water do--then why am I even worrying about the rainstorms and the animals being cold and whether they have enough to eat and whether they're going to drown? It's all so arbitrary!
It *is* beautiful the way the film captures the animals' behaviors. The cat and the dogs seem so on target, I wonder if it's also true about the capybara--do capybaras really fall over like that when they want to sleep? And it's fun to see the lemurs with their treasure. And it's beautiful to watch the whale-like creatures breach and see the multitudes of fish. And it's true what's said about the overall gist of the movie, that it shows the animals learning to work together and becoming a family.
But what's going to happen to them? And what about all the deer that keep getting drowned but whose bodies are tidily out of sight? And what about the beached whale-creature? Those are the points I get stuck on.