'Flow' Is the Perfect Movie for Animation Fans, Animal Lovers, and Environmental Doomsayers

And a pussycat shall lead them! Flow, the animated film that’s Latvia’s submission for the Best International Feature Oscar, kicks off with a beautiful moment of tranquility: A small, black feline, staring wide-eyed at itself in a rippling puddle. It’s somewhere in a forest, surrounded by foliage, and the ambient sounds of nature fill the soundtrack. A rabbit runs by, momentarily startling the cat. It’s soon followed by a pack of dogs, chasing the bunny and barely registering the meowing bystander’s existence. The creature will eventually amble up to a house with a cracked attic window, slipping inside for an early afternoon nap.

It’s all very soothing, giving you the sense that you’re watching the animation equivalent of ASMR. Then, after some business involving a stolen fish, our furry little friend finds itself in the same patch of green earth as before. Once again, the dogs sprint past it. This time, however, they’re followed by a thundering herd of deer. The animals appear to be running away from something. In the background, the trees begin to violently sway back and forth. And then, a huge wave rushes through and washes away everything in its path, including the cat. It eventually gets back to dry land, but then the water keeps rising. And rising. And rising….

A survivalist thriller that’s designed to appeal equally to animal lovers, avant-garde-cartoon aficionados and environmental doomsayers, Flow will spend the next 80 minutes following this feline and his fellow interspecific travelers as they try to navigate the end of the world as we know it. Eventually, the Golden Retriever who’d been part of that roving gang of doggy miscreants will join the freaked-out kitty on a boat they happen to spy passing by. So will a capybara, a lemur and a secretarybird. When the cat falls overboard and can’t paw its way back to the surface, it’s rescued from drowning by the opportune passing of a mammoth humpback, who catches the animal on its nose and breaches just in time. Saved by the whale! One life down, eight to go — although given the obstacles it will continually face, you worry that this resourceful lil’ buddy will eventually run through all of them before the day is over.

Director Gints Zilbalodis may be gathering an admittedly adorable posse of all creatures bright and beautiful, each of them rendered in a gorgeous, sometimes crude style of animation that would be best characterized as Early PlayStation Cut-Scene Chic. But in terms of storytelling, he’s going a specifically anti-Disney route here, and this road less traveled makes all of the difference. There’s no dialogue, at least none decipherable to human ears — everything is a symphony of meows, woofs, squawks, grunts, squeaks, squeals and simian cries. With the possible exception of one act of heroism late in the film, none of the animals are anthropomorphized. They more or less act in accordance with their IRL counterparts. There is no identification regarding where this is taking place — some of the stunningly detailed backgrounds suggest Angkor Wat, others bear a striking resemblance to Venice — though the predominance of both medium-sized and massive cat statues suggest it’s some sort of SPCA-sponsored sanctuary city. No explanation is given as to where the humans have gone. No explanation is given as to why a biblical flood is threatening to destroy it all, though for anyone who’s cared to keep their eyes open and their heads out of the sand, no explanation is necessary.

There’s little to no hand-holding — and/or paw-, talon-, or hoof-holding — in Flow. There’s simply making sure you keep your nose above water. There’s another enigmatic sequence that occurs as Zilbalodis ushers us into the third act, in which some sort of cosmic force grants one of these critters what appears to be a last-minute reprieve from terra firma. But the real takeaway is that we have to rely on each other for salvation. And it’s here where this experiential experiment in empathy, eco-activism and elation over the creative possibilities of a medium too often hijacked to sell toys truly hits its marks. Most of these animals either show up with or encounter a group of their fellow species (monkeys, dogs, birds). Most of them are abandoned or rejected by their peer groups, thanks to tribalism or simple self-preservation. The one moment in which these four-legged beasts resemble their furless, featherless two-legged neighbors is when several of them abandon a rescue mission midway through because of a passing distraction. Ain’t that just like a Homo sapien?

Yet this disparate band somehow manages to endure, and though you can’t accuse Flow of having a happily-ever-after ending, it somehow does go out on a optimistic note — a water-logged Planet Earth half empty, rather than half-fully ruined. There is a reprise of that lovely opening shot, basking in a calm before the inevitable storm to come. The movie ends as it begins, with no easy solution in sight. Only now we see a makeshift community staring back at themselves, no one alone, everyone companions in the apocalypse. It’s a timeless moral. And yet, at this particular moment, for many of us staring down the next four years, the idea that a community can come together to take on the rising tides couldn’t be more welcome or needed.