‘Flow’ REVIEW: A Symphony of Survival Through The Eyes Of A Cat
‘Flow’ REVIEW: A Symphony of Survival Through The Eyes Of A Cat
Flow (Straume in native Latvian) is an adventure of its own - visionary symphony of survival and companionship. Told from a cat’s point of view, the film gazes upon a world once revered and respected, now destroyed and ravaged by tragedy, returning nature to its rightful state.
Alongside Hayao Miyazaki’s earlier anime series Future Boy Conan — as mentioned by director Gints Zilbalodis as one of his inspirations of the film given its post-apocalyptic setting — I would also personally say that some of the film’s inspirations came from Disney's yesteryears, such as Bambi, The Lion King and Fantasia 2000, particularly one of its segments, Pomp and Circumstance, a baroque retelling of the Noah’s Ark accompanied by orchestral music featuring Donald and Daisy Duck. Also, Michael Dudok de Vit’s The Red Turtle rings a bell to the film’s inspiration with its lush depiction of nature evoking the sentiment of what a lonely world could have been.
Spoilers ahead.
The cat running through a field in Flow | Courtesy of Sideshow and Janus Films
The story starts with a biblical-like setting where animals roam the earth during its sixth-day according to this passage in Genesis 1:24:
And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
In its natural habitat, an unnamed dark-gray cat (not black, as per Zilbalodis’ X post), a fiercely independent one, wanders through the forest in search of food. Relying on its natural instincts, the cat runs away to safety when threatened. Eventually, the cat heads to an abandoned house, where remnants of human life remain such as feline sculptures. When a flood approaches, the cat is forced to tend its fear of water in order to survive, leading its way to the vessel with a pack of various animal species.
Through their eyes, each animal represents their own instincts and flaws which makes their portrayal realistic. Flow’s animal characterization provided human-like souls: the capybara, which gets along well with others, the friendly and laid-back golden retriever, the natural leader secretary bird,and the ever-materialistic yet sentimental lemur. Like humans, they form a team aboard a single boat, facing many atrocities committed by the vengeful force majeure or Acts of God while also finding solace in each other's company.
Why did I say atrocities?
It’s because nature in this film serves as the antagonist, with the flood changing the animals’ fate. Although it wasn’t explained in the film well why the floods happened, it straddles between the Biblical stories of Noah’s Ark and the Revelation where humanity is condemned for their spiritual corruption, greed, and selfishness. The architecture of the film gazes through its mythical structures reminiscent of Angkor, Jaipur, Venice and Atlantis throughout, providing context that there was before a civilization, which leaves its audience wondering about the fate of humanity’s demise.
The cat, the labrador and the capybara saw the light of the day in Flow | Courtesy of Sideshow and Janus Films
Meanwhile, after the apocalyptic events - one can wonder why the cat became alone despite the implication that they were once revered as divine, as evidenced by cat sculptures and cat-shaped natural formations are prominent throughout the film. Throughout its runtime, I can sense that the human race prior to the natural tragedy was downplayed to allow the audience to wonder and question what humanity had done which had led to their demise and how nature took back its rightful position as the host of the earth.
Atmospheric yet eerie and cathartic, with its prominent use of lush light and shadow to portray emotion and the story without the need of dialog, Flow is an epically produced universal fable about survival and hope. With its humanistic appeal, exquisite world-building reminiscent of watching a video game walkthrough and a simple yet visionary journey through the post-apocalyptic world, Flow invites us to flow through our souls as survivors who can make the most of these trying times, and to find our sense of belonging, whether in solitude or in the company of family and friends.
Flow is part of the 2025 FDCP A Curation Of World Cinema Series program. Flow is distributed in the Philippines by the Film Development Council of the Philippines.
