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As I lay mesmerized by Gints Zilbalodis’ Flow (‘Straume’ in Latvian), I thought, “If there’s an impending apocalypse, will human beings be the first species to perish?” The Latvian animation charmer is led solely by animals that aren’t anthropomorphized. It makes us wonder where have all the humans disappeared. After all, the film’s backdrop is that of a giant flood. Do we, human beings, possess the community and skills to survive such a calamity? The animals in Zilbalodis’ film – unlike modern-day human beings divided by race, class, religion, politics, gender, and orientation – strike an unlikely yet unconditional friendship in a crisis.
Flow’s protagonist is the ever-so-familiar black house cat. Since the cat’s gender is not specified in the film, I would like to use the pronoun “it” for the beautiful creature. I do not mean to call it attractive for its lustrous black fur or twinkling golden eyes that gleam in Flow’s gorgeous animation. The cat is a beauty inside and out.
Zilbalodis’ film is a survival saga. In such a story, whether it is real or imagined, the hero is a figure of bravery and magnanimity. In Flow, the cat is the epitome of all things heroic. Escaping a pack of dogs and later a mighty surge of water, it lands in a stray sailboat. In the vessel, it meets a capybara – a lethargic but intelligent animal. The journey continues and obstacles pop up in a manner that we see in a neatly done video game.
In comes more parties to the pack – a scrap-loving lemur, a brave secretary bird, and a playful Labrador. Together, the group of five unalike species (six, if we count the whale) forge a bond in Flow. The film takes us through various pitstops. At each place, we meet others of the protagonists’ ilk, namely, groups of hostile secretary birds, indifferent lemurs, and selfish dogs. Zilbalodis, without assigning human traits to the animals, personifies their equation as a “friendship”. While it might initially be understood as an arrangement to thrive in tragedy, Flow proves us wrong eventually by exhibiting vivid shades of love, kindness, and empathy.
Akin to The Red Turtle (2016), the animated film hypnotizes us with a narrative sans dialogues. In the process, Zilbalodis carves an observant and panoramic spectacle with well-defined characters. The film is observant because the animals behave as they would do in real settings. If you have interacted with a cat or a dog, you would know how they will react in calm and crisis. Flow isn’t an animated creature comedy with jokes to pull, yet the timing the filmmaker manages in their communion is magically in sync.
Additionally, the film carves a balance between drama and thrills in its action-packaged narrative. We root for a friendship or the lack thereof. If you look at the framing of the pre-climactic scene where a group of lemurs looks at a mirror and the cat walks past his “friend” sitting among them, you would see the Zilbalodis’ mastery in generating drama without needless exposition. He refuses to employ a piece of strong accompanying music in some of the key sequences. That said, the composers (Rihards Zalupe and Zilbalodis) do provide an atmospheric soundtrack to Flow.
Besides writing and directing the film, Zilbalodis is in charge of the art, camera, and editing departments besides partially involving himself in a bunch of other areas. So, in a film that is ever-so-pleasing to look at, the sweat stains of hard work are conspicuous. The maker elicits anger, tension, desperation, gratitude, and sheer joy in a brief runtime of 85 minutes. Aside from an obvious nod to climate change and the unpredictability of life on planet Earth, the film quietly and more importantly exposes the vagaries of human relationships. Latvia’s official entry to the 2025 Academy Awards, Flow is easily the finest animation film of the year and is among the strongest contenders to emerge as the year’s best fiction feature.
Rating: ★★★★ 1/2
Flow was watched on a private FYC Screener ahead of the awards season. The film is running in select theatres across the USA from November 22, 2024.
