Flow was a heart wrenching, yet fascinating experience.

First, what a great sound design and atmospheric movie it was. It is in their simplest effort to understand the behavior of the animals they portray, and it makes the whole movie feel so authentic and digestible. Dialogue is not needed to portray feeling, and feeling is a universal language. It connects everyone on a deep level, and creates emotional attachment, without the use of words or common language. It’s how, in real life, people can form bonds and have good interactions with people even despite a language barrier. It is a fundamental truth that should be remembered.

Shown by the cat, bird, capybara, dog, and lemur; connection goes beyond what you are. In how the dog doesn’t follow his dog friends, and the lemur leaves his lemur friends, there is value in going beyond the group. Beyond the norm. Beyond what is “safe” or “traditional.” There could be a better place beyond the comfort zone.

This movie goes on to commentate on social anxiety, where the cat feels like it’s drowning in the dread coming from it. The water keeps building up, spilling over; the spiky whale threatens the cat and provides unease for what is in the water, and everyone that the cat meets is scary at first. Then, through more interaction, the cat realizes it’s not so scary. Throughout the progression of the movie, the cat goes through the motions of being scared and then realizing with the help of what was once scary, that it is actually okay. It is the journey of overcoming fears, and finding yourself after feeling so flooded with emotions that life becomes a blur.

And even through that flood and mess, the friends made along the way — the real ones — will stay, and though the journey is long, the destination of overcoming your fears doesn’t need any words. It cycles back to the one universal thing, the only thing needed; your feelings. 

Everyone has different destinations, and every animal on that boat had a different idea for where they were going. And that’s okay, to have a different destination, and still enjoy the journey along the way. Just like the crane, you’ll see, making friends with the cat, accepting their kindness, and steering that boat was a part of their journey.

I definitely recommend giving this movie the hour and thirty minutes of attention it asks for, to experience all that this movie has to offer in its lesson and the underlying atmosphere it surrounds you with. The world it builds for the audience is purely built on nature, and the appreciation of noises like that do leave people feeling light and relieved.

In the end, when the movie visualizes the end of the flood, and the aftermath of it, suddenly the viewer might realize that they just watched a life go past them. Experiences that span years upon years, told in a single hour and thirty minutes. Stories that might be related to social anxiety, making friends, and keeping them told by animals of all different kinds and countries; all told without a single word.