I hadn’t heard of it until a few days ago, and it sounds really wonderful. Has anyone here seen it, and what did you think?
I have skimmed through it slightly with anticipation of watching it. It appears to be a dialogue-free non-anthropomorphisized animal movie. I’m not a big fan of the art style.
Here’s the trailer. The animation looks pretty impressive, but the style doesn’t really grab me. I’m indifferent to the idea of a full-length movie of animals doing animal things, even in extreme circumstances.
It’s beautiful and is one of the best films of the year.
I loved it. The animals aren’t quite natural, they’re a bit closer to sentient than real animals tend to be. But it’s a fantasy, and it’s beautifully realised. So, if that appeals, I recommend it highly.
+1
It is wordless, but the animals are a bit anthropomorphized. The animation style supports a dreamlike fantasy world that unfold in a somewhat leisurely fashion.
I had never heard of it either, and I’m the projectionist.
Running several shows a day, I can hear the cat meowing from my perch in the booth. I’ll have to give it a watch. I like the idea of an animated film without dialogue. The Triplets of Belleville was one of the best, and nobody spoke a word (they did sing once or twice).
The “Shaun the Sheep” movie and “Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit” also had little or no dialogue. I heard that the “Minions” movie didn’t either.
Check out Robot Dreams.
That looks amazing. And rentable on both Prime and Apple.
Now seen. It went in directions I was not expecting!
Recommended.
Watched and enjoyed.
Was a little iffy about the intelligence level of the animals, mostly in regards to steering (I could imagine some animals learning over a greater period of time than is depicted but more in the sense of accidental trial-and-error), the boat rope pulling, as well as the, let’s say ‘empathy’ exhibited by the animal characters. Somewhat plausible under some circumstances (like baby birds imprinting on non-birds, cats and crows bringing their humans gifts), so one supposes each of them could see the others as companions in that sense.
And really uncertain about the bird ‘ascending to heaven’, at first thought it was another of the cat’s dream sequences, but apparently it done died. Sadface.
One of the most intriguing aspects to me was the worldbuilding … what level of civilization was this and what happened to them? The cat and dogs seemed more civilized than feral, as if their humans had disappeared during their lifetimes, yet no trace of human bodies or bones and the human art and structures were still largely intact and not reclaimed by nature prior to the “Flow” … which, why and how did the Flow happen?
Climate change would not be that sudden, perhaps a dam breaking if the area was below sea level - but then the question of what happened to the water later is, well, a mystery. One would think a tsunami sufficient to have caused that would have been more violent (possibly requiring an extinction-level impactor with lethal consequences) and if a sufficiently dense object were to pass close enough to Earth to cause that level of tides, also excessive side effects. I suppose we can’t rule out a Biblical metaphor.
Anyhow, it was beautiful and entertaining and the animals had a lot of personality in their body language, also the cinematography was rather well done imo.
Perhaps, but it is so refreshing to see animals that don’t wear sunglasses, cross their arms in frustration, or dance like they’re in on the latest TikTok craze. I can’t emphasize enough how invigorating it is to see the inane, faddish anthropomorphism we see in 99% of all Hollywood animated features thrown out on its ear.
From seeing the trailer, I really like the background animation a lot. The principle animation of the characters has really nice movement but I think they could have done the cat’s (and some other animals’) eyes better. They’re too cartoonish.
ETA: And no dialogue. Just like with real animals. So great.
I don’t think faddish is really the right word. Bambi came out in theaters a long long time ago. I don’t think Walt Disney was influenced much by Tik Tok.
You are right about that. I was thinking more of post-1990 (or so) animated films that have animals not only acting like humans, but acting like boorish and boring humans that quote beer commercials or whatever catchphrase is popular that week.
Ok, but that’s been happening for much longer than the 1990s.
I saw this, and it is not some shallow kids’ cartoon. The imagery and metaphors bear thinking about if you want to understand what the film is about. Moving, and recommended.
I’ll just give them credit for using free-and-open-source software.
I have watched the movie with my wife and cats. The one who could NOT stop watching was the cat! I don’t know if was the authentic noises (almost all are real-animal recordings), the motion, or something else entirely, but he was fixated on the screen for the entire film.
I enjoyed it, but I choose to interpret it as the dream of a cat, because of the many surreal and fantastic moments.
My wife had much more mixed feelings about it. She felt it was beautiful with intriguing imagery, but hates when animals are in pain and risk, physical or emotional. Of course, we’re both (more so these days) much more comfortable with humans being put through such situations, especially if it’s of there own free will. 
I saw this movie on HBO Saturday. I came across it while channel surfing and unexpectedly got sucked in. I’m aware this movie isn’t supposed to be set in a specific place but it looked like Southern China and southeastern Asia (even though some of the animals featured don’t originate from there).
There were definitely some Asian influences to parts of it, kind of Nepalese it seemed to me, but I also saw Greek and Scandinavian, so I think it’s just meant to represent that they travelled a long distance.