It’s rare to see a movie and think, “I need every kid to see this.”
That’s the case with Flow, which just screened at the SCAD Savannah Film Festival.
I don’t mean that as homework, the way that, at least when I was a child, the TV was wheeled in on a squeaky cart, a surefire sign that some dusty movie was about to play. Flo is vibrant, as funny as it is devastating, and vital.
Flow is Latvia’s entry for Best International Film at this year’s Academy Awards. Language isn’t a barrier, though. There is no dialogue.
The animated feature begins by introducing us to a cat, who sees its reflection in the water. Water is key to this movie—which says a lot; water is very hard to animate.
The cat is confused when a pack of dogs and a stampede of deer gallop by her in a seeming panic. Trailing closely behind them is a rush of water. There’s been a flood. The lush rainforest where the cat lives is now submerged.
It’s very easy to describe the plot of Flow: The cat tries to survive during that flood. But as certain obstacles present—the boat the cat finds shelter on is overtaken by other animals; the city buildings the boat encounters are precarious to navigate—you start to wonder not just about the cat, but about the world that surrounds it.
Every broken tree canopy the boat passes is a gorgeous reminder of what is lost when a disaster like the unspoken one in the film takes place. Multiple times in the film, the cat and the boat encounter other animals who are frantic about how to survive, and grateful for the boat passing their way that they can hop in on.
These animals are all cute and rendered with endearing personality. But what’s notable, as the film goes on, is how few animals there are. The film starts with stampede, but continues on with scarcity. We’re not shown floating corpses or anything like that, but as the cat’s concern over this unfamiliar, flooded environment grows, you can’t help but wonder what happened to the other cats, the other animals, who didn’t luck upon a boat?
This is a film about climate change and the environmental crisis it causes. It’s not overt about it. Again, because we spend the whole film following this cat, there is no dialogue, no patronizing monologue about it. We’re left to infer what is happening by watching this cat navigate its world, which has been damaged and irrevocably changed by the rushing water. Even though this is a cute animated film with a cute cat as its protagonist, you start to wonder if it will survive.
There are small moments that are striking. As more animals board the boat, desperate for safety, you see how they initially are skeptical and territorial, before ultimately working together because there’s no other choice. And even when the water recedes, you see that there is no end to this. Another deer stampede comes. As quickly as the animals catch their breaths—and lose the boat that saved them, because they’re on dry land again—another flood is coming.
Flow is a message movie, but it’s not pedantic. I love the idea that a child might watch for the first time and love it because there’s a cute cat. If they revisit it when they’re a year older, they may start to be scared about the rising water. And maybe a little older than that, they will see that there’s a climate change lesson to be learned.
It’s a strong year for animated films at the Oscars. Inside Out 2 set a box office record. The Wild Robot is hot on its tails. But maybe Flow, a movie about the scrappiness of an animal’s spirit, will scrape its way into the race too.
