Flow

Time and Tide

or

"Never Get Outta the Boat!"
 

It's a late entry, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Oscar for Best Animated Film goes to an obscure little film from Latvia, instead of the very well-funded projects out of Pixar, Disney, Dreamworks or other cartoon shops. Considering that it's been a very strong year for animation with Inside Out 2, Moana 2, The Wild Robot, and Robot Dreams, Flow, that film from Latvia stands a good chance of blowing those other films to pixelated smithereens.

 

One may initially be confused about the film because it begins with an almost ludicrous number of producing logos, which is more of a statement of how difficult it is to get a movie of this type funded (certainly harder than the other films mentioned above!). But the movie proper begins with a quiet image—a sable cat looks in a pool of water at its own reflection and ponders. One doesn't know how old the cat is—it looks and frequently acts young, but it has the instincts of a slightly more experienced older cat. It certainly doesn't stick around when it perceives a threat. But, here, it is looking and...reflecting.

Even in that first moment of story, the image impresses. Not so much photo-realistic, it gives the impression of reality with multiple planes of image—the water, what's under its surface, the reflection of the cat, and the canopy of foliage above it, slightly fading away with distance. It's impressive. One will get used to this level of detail, but every so often, one shakes one's head at the enormity of the world-building, complicated and verdant, that is going on by the animators.

The story is simple, conveyed with images and no anthropomorphized dialogue or clarifying narration, of a collection of animals trying to survive on a post-apocalyptic Earth (or is it?) as it convulses with tidal shifts and unsure landscapes, with no clear goals other than existence. Maybe there's a shared understanding among the denizens of "we're all in this together" but it's of varying degree depending on the species and its instincts. There is not a human being to be seen, except in what they've left behind—like an abandoned house that the cat takes shelter in, drawn by the many carved cat statues that stand mid-caper in the yard.

There are other animals, of course. The river is teaming with fish. There are dogs of various breeds roaming in packs, wild deer—which the cat associates with impending disaster—birds, lemurs, capybaras. And a very large, almost prehistoric whale, which figures significantly. The cat has encounters with them—being a cat it has more to do with choice and tolerance than anything—and the wider scope of the story involves a journey, but one without any ultimate, agreed-upon destination, on a boat—another indication of previous human activity.

The boat provides some stability, the land and water being in a state of flux, and something of a safe harbor from the surrounding convulsions, and the encounters along the way with other animals, whether fellow passengers or fellow travelers, are new experiences which reveal character but makes no judgments. They are what they are, just as the landscape is what it is, which, in the animators' tools, is beautiful and wondrous, whether adhering to a slightly impressionistic realism or, as it does once, bordering on the surreal.

If one was crossing their arms and harrumphing about plausibilities, one might grump about an animal's (or bird's) ability to navigate with a rudder or figure out a life-saving mechanical maneuver, but for all the overwhelming evidence of behavioral realism, this is negligible. Nor is the messaging so precious that it can be seen as "Animal House"-lite; when the cat hurks up a hair-ball in front of an acquisitive lemur, I don't think of it as an anti-capitalist statement.

No, the story is pushed by behavior in the moment, simply, delicately, and subtley, reactive to the challenges of close-quarters and an evolving landscape.

I don't want to get too "The Theory of Everything" about this movie—everything does not need to be explained away or justified—however it's also a movie about learning, about process, about inter-connectedness, and ultimately, it's a picture about you and your reactions to it. How you respond and what story you see and what you take away from it (as such, I should say that to get the complete picture—literally—you need to stay through the credits as there's a last scene at the very tail end). Is there a journey's end? Not really. Not one that we're privy to, anyway.

 

As such, it's a film that makes you reflect and ponder.