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Decoding the Unique Cinematic Language of ‘Flow’
The exceptional synergy of music and visuals in Gints Zibalodis’s wordless animation
Anyone familiar with a rudimentary history of cinema is aware that for the first few decades of its evolution, films did not have any recorded sound. This phase is often referred to as the “silent era” (mid 1890s to the late 1920s), which is sort of a misnomer because these films were almost always accompanied by live music (a pianist, a theatre organist, or even an orchestra in larger cities). However, filmmakers were yet to find a way to effectively record synchronized sound to go with the motion pictures, although efforts were constantly being made in this direction since the earliest days of cinema.
The turning point came in the year 1927 with the release of The Jazz Singer, the first feature-length film with synchronised recorded sound (music, singing and speech) which ushered in the era of the “talkies”. By the time Walt Disney released his first feature-length animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarves in 1937, dialogue had become an intrinsic part of cinema and apart from a few exceptions, it has remained that way ever since. In this context, Gintz Zibalodis’s decision to completely do away with dialogue in his animated feature, Flow, assumes added significance. It is an interesting…
