Movie Review: Flow

"Meow."

Flow, directed by Gints Zilbalodis, is a Latvian animated film about a black cat's adventures. It is beautiful.

Cat lives a solitary life in a human-less world: she inhabits a rundown house formerly owned by a Cat Person, judging by the numerous cat sculptures in the yard. She’s both sprightly and timid, struggling to catch fish but excellent at jumping onto high places.

When a tsunami comes, or maybe just rising sea levels, or late-stage capitalism or something—basically, a wave of water the one thing all cats hate—Cat must flee for safety: first, from the other animals stampeding to safety, then from drowning. This is harrowing to watch even if you suspect the main character won’t die 10 minutes into the film.

Cat eventually finds safety, of a sort. After falling into the water, a large sea monster (accidentally? On purpose?) nudges her into a dilapidated boat that contains a narcoleptic capybara. They are eventually joined by a lemur who’s a bit of a magpie, a secretary bird, and a Labrador Retriever.

Every description I’ve read of the film emphasizes that there is no dialogue, and while that is strictly true, since there is no human language, there is plenty of communication, from meows and capybara grunts and lemur screeching to the body language at which animals excel. (Even though there is a translation issue from a doggy "play pose" versus a cat's "I'm doing yoga" stretches.)

The score, too, communicates emotion more effectively than language could do. Tension, relief, joy, sadness, and awe come through strongly in the soundtrack.

The animation, of course, is the real star of the show. Cats have notoriously unexpressive faces, but this Cat communicates emotion, knowledge, and personal growth without becoming a creepy anthropomorphized freakazoid. The background animation is particularly beautiful, as well, with gorgeous nuances in the leaves, water, clouds, and human ruins that the animals travel through. The result is profoundly moving.

It is tempting to read this movie as an allegory: of climate change, or the refugee crisis, or perhaps the loneliness epidemic. But this is not Life of Pi. To turn this into nothing but by-the-numbers symbolism diminishes the magical alterity of animal existence in a time of disruption.

The animals do become a found family, as they sort of must, which does mean Cat’s journey is from fearful solitariness to safety in community, hardly a radical character arc. But if you're skittish about meeting new people, a capybara is probably a good first friend!

The real highlights for me, though, are the secretary bird and the giant sea monster (which Wikipedia claims is a whale?!). There is actually a flock of secretary birds, one of whom picks up Cat and drops her. But our secretary bird—let's call her Bird—protects Cat from being eaten, even though it leads to her being attacked by and ostracized (pun?) from her flock. Taller than the other animals, with a large wingspan, Bird becomes something of a parent figure for Cat.

The giant sea monster, on the other hand, is sort of like a deus ex machina, or the hand of fate, or plot armor (if you're feeling cynical). Terrifyingly large, this animal rescues Cat more than once, gradually earning Cat's trust. Their last scene together is beautiful, and reminded me of a line from a Jhumpa Lahiri short story, about how you know you belong in a place when you have someone to mourn there.

There are some moments that I had to adapt to, as I got used to which type of animal story this film is. Cat seems to develop a basic sense of how to steer the boat, and Bird is an amazing captain. Even the capybara tries his best to steer the craft during a storm. But, why not? I don't know what capybaras are capable of. Maybe lemurs really do hoard objects. Maybe Golden Retrievers really are very, very friendly. (Okay, I know one of those is true!)

Pushing back against the anthropomorphizing, though, is a sense that we get a glimpse into a sort of animal theology. When Bird recovers from her injuries, she flies off the boat and to the top of a large pillar. Cat follows, and during a storm the two of them begin to levitate. Bird eventually transmigrates into the heavens, leaving Cat (temporarily) alone, but showing us what an animal afterlife might look like, and how beautiful it can be.

My cat Beatrice died on New Year’s Day. I met her in 2016, when I moved into my current home. She was a longstanding "unofficial tenant" of my very large apartment complex. I, like many of my neighbors, fed her regularly, but I couldn't take her inside until after my cat Sam passed away in 2019. Beatrice and I lived together through lockdowns, but in 2023 her wild nature got the better of her, and she spent less and less time with me, even as she was getting visibly older and weaker. I brought her inside for the last time on Christmas Eve, and although she seemed to be doing better at first, it was time to euthanize just eight days later. I am so grateful for our last week together, and all the years before.

Beatrice and Cat are not identical, although they are both petite, with black fur and amazing eyes. Beatrice loved humans but hated all other animals, whereas Cat seems more willing to make a diverse group of friends. But watching Cat’s adventures reminded me of some of Beatrice’s best moments, like the time she scared off a pair of raccoons just by staring at them. Or her brief phase of waiting until I came home, meowing to get my attention, then taking a running start to jump into a small tree. She'd stare at me, so proud of her accomplishment, then climb down and come inside for dinner.

In the Dark Mountain Manifesto, environmental activists Dougland Hine and Paul Kingsnorth say that "the end of the world as we know it is not the end of the world full stop." As I mentioned above, this movie could be read as an allegory of climate change or any of the ongoing disasters of our lives. It can also be about any disruption, any loss that makes it feel like the world as we know it has ended.

But one ending is not the end of all things. There is always another story, with new people and friends, sadness and joy, and hopefully a large sea monster to help us along the way.

Four out of four Beatrices.

Josie Kafka is a full-time cat servant and part-time rogue demon hunter. (What's a rogue demon?)

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