Maybe I'm a little late talking about this film, which has already received all the praise in the world, but what can I say? I had to resist until I could see it in theaters and experience it fully, and I can definitely say it was completely worth it.
Flow felt like that once-in-a-lifetime cathartic experience where some people understand that the meaning of life is simply that: flow. Without the need for dialogue or explanation beyond the visuals and behaviors that we could justify as mere "instinct," this film tells a story capable of moving every fiber of our being. Perhaps because, in a way, we've all been drifting through life in the same boat as the protagonists.
Animated films where the protagonists are usually animals usually have a very specific target audience for children, where connecting through characters with cute and charismatic designs becomes very easy. Although this film also targets that audience, its plot was undoubtedly designed to go much further. Loaded with metaphors with varying degrees of understanding depending on the audience, we could undoubtedly call Flow a masterpiece of modern cinema, not just animation but cinema in general.
With characters who evolve over the course of the story, each with their own storyline interwoven with the film's survival, bringing them together in a world that appears to be a kind of post-apocalyptic, but not the neon-hued one we're so used to, a world without humans where nature slowly takes over the spaces it once stole.
I could try, most likely with a high level of folly or arrogance, to explain the metaphors or the "meaning" of the film, but that would be somewhat naive on my part. These kinds of films must be experienced, allowing each person to experience their own journey into the unknown and find their safe place there, going with the flow to find their own safe places, or simply taking the risk of living an experience beyond the cinema.
