Of all the post-apocalyptic landscapes we've been treated to over the years, none is as beautiful nor peaceful as that of “Flow.”
In Gints Zilbalodis' wondrously shimmering animated fable, a solitary black cat, after escaping a cataclysmic flood, navigates a water world. What brought things to this point is never explained. We're left to look upon this strange, verdant and overgrown landscape through the amber eyes of our unnamed feline protagonist. Humans are completely absent, and it's part of this beguilingly meditative film to wonder not just about what role we played in the flood, but to ponder the grace of the animal life left to inherit the Earth.
As much as I didn't have a wordless Latvian animated movie on my 2024 bingo card, “Flow” — an expected Oscar contender currently in theaters — is quite easily the best animated movie of the year and one of the most poetic ecological parables in recent memory. It's an all-audiences movies, and by that, I'm tempted to include not just young and old, but cats and dogs, too.
When the waters rise, the cat encounters a friendly Labrador, a long-legged secretary bird, a dozing capybara and a bauble-hoarding ring-tailed lemur. Cute as they are, they aren't quite your typical animated animals. Part of the allure of “Flow” is seeing animal characters that would normally be anthropomorphized and voiced by celebrity actors — the lemur, in particularly, has until now been ruled by Sacha Baron Cohen's King Julian of “Madagascar" — move and sound authentically.
Well, mostly. Circumstances bring these five together aboard a small sailboat, an ark sans Noah. And while “Flow” doesn't exactly go for realism — the secretary bird, for instance, proves an especially adept captain in steering the rudder — it is most decidedly drawn in closer harmony to the natural world than your average animation. Together they sail through mountain tops-turned-islands and an abandoned city with rivers for streets.
That “Flow” is made with computer generated animation adds to its dreamy, curiously real surrealism. Zilbalodis created “Flow” with Blender, the free, open-source graphics software tool. His camera moves less with the prescribed, storyboarded form of traditional animation than as a nimble, roving perspective within a virtual world. That such a natural and sensory movie is made possible by cutting-edge technology is one reason why the dystopic world of “Flow” always feels more hopeful than it ought to.
Another reason is the animals. Though they come from different species and have little means of communication, they together form an odd partnership. The cat is initially wary of each, but they slowly form an evident bond. Their survival hinges on their cooperation, which is occasionally threatened by the self-interest of others (there's a pack of less community-minded dogs) or the cat's own timid reluctance. Staying to face a problem or trust another animal, rather than scampering away, goes against its nature.
In that way, these two- and four-legged creatures, digitally rendered in a human-less future, are both worthy heirs to the planet and furry figures of inspiration for today. Reflections run through “Flow” — in a mirror clutched by the lemur, in the water the cat peers into — but none more so than the image of ourselves gazing back at it.
“Flow,” a Sideshow and Janus Films release is rated PG by the Motion Picture Association for peril and thematic elements. Running time: 84 minutes. Three and a half stars out of four.
Jake Coyle, The Associated Press