This article was written by The Zillennial Zine’s spring editorial intern Gahnique Bell. Find her on Instagram at @s14rbur81_g4l4xy. If you would like to share an article with The Zillennial, send us an email at thezillennialzine@gmail.com.
I don’t really watch the Oscars like that, and I don’t know many people who do, but when I heard Disney lost the Best Animated Feature award to Flow, I was shocked. I was even more shocked to find out that it’s been three whole years since Disney has even won an Oscar.
Disney, the Disney, a huge big time production company that’s known for creating all the princess movies and having a crap load of money, lost to an independent film made from Latvian using a free software called Blender.
If that doesn’t tell you Disney lost their touch, then I don’t know what does.
And that’s not to say that Disney hasn’t made any good films lately. Many people believed Inside Out 2 was a great film that touched on a lot of peoples real life struggles with anxiety and fitting in. DreamWorks’ recent movie The Wild Robot, which was also nominated for an Oscar, touched on heavy subjects like death, family, and parenthood. Both are incredible films, but somehow manage to lose to Flow.
Flow winning the Oscars is actually a really really realllyyyy huge deal and could possibly mean indie animation is on the rise to be on the same level with big animation studios.
This brings up one question: Will Disney ever win another Oscar?
Disney’s Downward Spiral
Lately, Disney hasn’t been doing too well.
People believe that they are losing their touch. From the disappointment of Wish to the overuse of live-action remakes like The Lion King to the scrapping of projects like Tiana show really doesn’t give Disney a good look.
Nothing feels “original” anymore. They don’t seem fun. There’s no magic that Disney once have. The people are becoming restless and have caught on to Disney bullshit so there is a demand for something new. Something captivated. Something that doesn’t have the jelly bean Cal Arts style or live action or something made as a cash grab. The people want something authentic. Something not from a corporate company.
And that’s where Flow comes in.
How Flow won the Oscars
Flow is an animated film about a dark gray cat that finds refuge on a boat with other animals after a flood destroys its home.
The film was released on November 22, 2024. It has won over 10 awards, including the Golden Globe Awards, the New York critics award, and the Latvian National Film award.
Director and writer Glint Zilbalodis says in an interview with Blender that the film took around five and a half years to make. That included gathering a crew, writing, pitching, drawing, and all the other aspects that goes into creating a film. Glint goes on to explain that the crew was only a handful of people, about 15-20 people, which is insane compared to the 100s of people that created films for larger production studios like Disney, Pixar, and DreamWorks.
Instead of expensive software that many other movies are made in, the entire film of Flow was made in Blender and rendered in a software called EEVEE. Glint didn’t even use storyboards. He designed all of the scenes in 3D to maximize speed and time. The rough version of the scene was done with a virtual camera that moved often throughout the film, which gave it a live-action feel to it.
What’s surprising is how little of a budget Flow was made with. The budget was significantly less than what regular animated films cost. It only cost the Latvian team 3.5 million dollars to make the film. Now I know that sounds like a shit load of money, but compared to films like Inside Out 2 and Pixar’s movie Elemental that was made on a budget of 200 million dollars (not 1 not 2 but 200 million dollars) a 3.5 million budget for a movie is nothing but pocket change.
But why exactly do people love this movie? What’s the hype around it?
Why Flow Is A Masterpiece
Well, first of all the film is absolutely beautiful. It looks like it came straight out of a book or even a video game. It reminds me specifically of the game Stray that came out in 2022, which also featured a cat protagonist. Its unique style is a breath of fresh air from the jelly bean style that has been used in a lot of animated films and shows and have been getting a bit of uproar from the audience lately.
Another thing that’s also unique about this film is its use of no dialogue. I’ve been hearing on social media about people wishing for more animated films that don’t have any dialogue. They wanted the art to speak for itself. It’s why people gravitated toward The Wild Robot when it came out but were disappointed that it had dialogue in it instead of being just the art and characters on the screen.
Although the movie is simple, it still hits on emotional themes that people could resonate with. The film is grounded and filled with themes of friendship, finding your family/people, and relying on others. Nature is also a huge part of this film that not many animated films touch on.
It’s filled with raw emotion everywhere you look. It also felt personal to a lot of people. It was obvious that the movie was created out of pure passion and not stained by corporate views.
The characters are pretty expressive. Instead of the usual anamorphic animal characters we see on TV, Flow portrays the animals in their real, natural form. They show how the characters are feeling strictly through subtle movements of the characters similar to how an actual animal would communicate. The cat would flick its ear or arch its back if it was scared. The dog would wag its tail or woof to alert others if something was nearby. Simple cues like that that the audience can easily pick up on adds to the reason why no dialogue (or I guess you can call them silent films) works.
Its success showed that films that are just pure visual and storytelling can be just as powerful as dialogue-heavy films.
How Flows Success Will Change The Future Of The Animation Industry
Flow has broken barriers that the animation studio never thought could be broken. It has given hope to other indie filmmakers and indie studios that they, too, can earn big awards and recognition despite being up against big production studios.
This film solely winning the Oscars will forever change the animation industry. It gives the message that if you have a vision. A passion. A dream. Then, you have the power to go up against Disney, Pixar, and other animation studios. This also means that the ways things are in Hollywood as far as animation is concerned is changing. The current rules are not working anymore. The animation industry has been in flames for the longest time, and finally, there seems to be a glimmer of hope that the industry will bounce back stronger than ever.
Did you like the movie Flow? Do you think Disney will win another Oscar? Let us know in the comments!
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