There isn’t a person who lives in South Louisiana who doesn’t understand the creeping horror of rising flood waters. I lived in Baton Rouge during the Flood of 2016. I remember sitting up late into the night watching as three feet of water threatened to crest the raised steps of my parent’s home. There are still nights that I dream of that feeling, seeing millions of gallons of water flowing over lawns and mailboxes, knowing that I was thoroughly unable to do anything to stop it, that in the face of the unfeeling tide of nature, I was at its mercy.
Watching “Flow,” an incredible achievement in animated storytelling, I was bowled over by warring feelings of dread and wonder from the opening frames to the last. It is rare, if ever, that a film so fully consumes me with joy, terror, or grief from one moment to the next, Jacob’s Laddering emotions in a way that utterly wrecks my soul. Crying through the film felt like a purge; maybe something needed as recent world events threaten to consume us and everything we love. Big thoughts from a movie about a group of unspeaking animals on a boat, but who are we if not animals ourselves doing the very same thing, struggling to remain afloat above the unyielding flood waters of history?
The story is deceptively simple, yet reveals itself to be more complex and existential as it unfolds around us. Our focus is on a small unnamed Black Cat. In the opening frames, we see it contemplate itself in a pool of water; its eyes so wide and inviting you’d be forgiven for believing universes exist within them. The Cat lives in a hostile world devoid of humans but with the bones of human society left behind. There are some houses, temples, and grand works of art that include a cat statue the size of Rio Jesus. But our Cat isn’t alone, either There are plenty of animals vying for survival in this perpetual rainforest; large birds, dogs of all sizes, and even thunderous herds of deer. These monstrous creatures are terrifying to our little Cat, but it has a fine life of solitude and safety in an abandoned house; curled up on a windowsill with the sun setting over the long distant mountains. A fine life too soon upended as the world around it begins to be consumed by water.
There is no explanation for why the water comes. Are we in a post-global warming nightmare or in the aftermath of some other man-made catastrophe? We cannot be sure. But if humans caused this plague, they are no longer around to suffer the consequences. Typical. There is rain but also tsunami-like torrents of water that rip through the forest, destroying everything in its path. Our Cat tries to avoid this as best it can until the waters reach its home. In the first of many harrowing sequences of animal peril throughout the film, we watch our Cat hop along small patches of dry land, just inches from the encroaching waters, as its comfortable home is engulfed and lost in a desert of unfeeling water. It ultimately finds itself clamoring to the top of the massive cat sculpture, the last surviving creature in a virgin ocean. It is alone, standing among the bones of a dead, society, fighting desperately to survive by its own means. Rest assured survival does come, not in the form of its own self-reliance, however, but by the kindness of a neighbor; in this case, a Capybara in a boat.
So begins the journey of “Flow,” an 85-minute odyssey of resilience and love through the eyes of a small group of animals guiding a boat through the ruins of man’s failures. As our Cat and Capybara friend continue their journey, they pick up new shipmates: a dog, a lemur, an egret. Their voyage is a perilous one as they race the rising waters in search of respite and safety, which we soon begin to believe they will never find. What director Gints Zilbalodis and the entire filmmaking team are able to capture with such tender specificity is the process by which these creatures are able to not just find common cause for survival, but a shared love and affection in the face of overwhelming catastrophe. The film’s choice to eschew the traditional animated trope of talking animals for naturalism gives our animal avatars a Rorschach quality. We never know what they are thinking any more than we know what any person we see on the street is really thinking. But we learn, as our Cat does, how to not just communicate but relay affection for comrades who once were bitter, “natural” enemies. There is a deeper metaphor at play here, not even an overly complicated one, but the craft displayed allows the audience member’s mind to wander in a way that only enhances the story, only offers us a deeper comprehension of what it means to persevere when the odds are stacked against you and everything you love.
I found myself impossibly moved by “Flow.” Maybe it’s because I have a cat that looks exactly like the cat in the film. Maybe it’s because we all have a soft spot for small things in danger. And, maybe it’s because even in the face of impossible opposition, these creatures found hope in each other and charted a path toward a better future they could never have achieved on their own. We are but small, domesticated animals ourselves, left adrift upon unknowable seas, watching helplessly as the flood waters of time rise up to consume us. If “Flow” is about anything, and it is about quite a bit, it is a ballad to those who offer help in the face of calamity and compassion against their better judgment. The tsunami of history may drown us all eventually, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t grace in pulling lost cats from flood waters.
If you see one animated movie about cats this Christmas season, make it “Flow”.
You’ll be glad you did.
“Flow” is now showing at The Broad Theater and Prytania Theatres at Canal Place.
