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Go With the FLOW
A silent, mesmerizing journey of co-existence... April 1, 2025
By Bessy ADUT
With the current events, I was at a pause following my last two important interviews with LAJFL and Andrew Bernstein articles ever since my Academy Awards 2025 piece. I touched upon this animation in that article of nominated films but intended to write a more detailed review later. Today, when I was sitting at a coffee shop 2 young girls sat next to me and they were kind enough to look for my I Ching too. In the very first card, there was something written as “Go with the Flow” as a couple living on a farm and feeding chickens. Everything was meaningful. So I am taking another look into this animation. I will talk about it technically as well as what it meant.
When I looked at other reviews, which I sometimes do such as Los Angeles Times reviews, I enjoyed this opening and it already got me thinking:
"Flow follows a jet-black cat with golden yellow eyes as it tries to survive a pack of barking dogs, among them a friendly golden retriever, and a tall Crane, and befriends a lemur, and a capybara. After a devastating flood almost kills them, they all end up on a boat together. They realize they need each other to survive. They put their differences aside and work together to keep the boat afloat and find food."
I read about co-existence there in how animals all end up together and how they put aside their differences and work together to keep going and survive in a wild world. And that’s a message to all people. Just like these animals, we also need to get on the same boat and learn to share and survive together. We gotta help each other with our strengths and weaknesses. None of us can go far alone and by alone I don’t mean just with your own family and friends. It’s always nice to see a large group of people coming together with the same heart beating for their love, freedom, happiness, liberty, and justice. We have seen these all over the world lately. Instead of wars, we need LOVE and PEACE which also includes adapting to survive. A house cat needs to learn to live with differences and experience sweet sorrows.
The most interesting fact about this film is that there is no dialogue. So we put all the language barriers aside. Real animal sounds were used during this animation. It was made on free software. It did so well by going past many big studio movies which is very impressive. Even the cat has a picture with a little Oscar statue in his hand and it is adorable. Flow cat indeed winning an Oscar made the movie an Oscar Contender and deserves a closer look at it.
In this animated adventure film, we follow our protagonist cat who survives along with other animals in a post-apocalyptic world as the water levels rise to dramatic heights. The film was directed by Gint Zilbalodis and written/produced by him with Matiss Kaza. Film is a multi-cultural production with a creative collaboration of Latvian, French, and Belgian artists.
Another interesting fact is that this film took 5.5 years to complete and as you may have heard in the press, they used a free software called Blender. There were no storyboards used.
The film world premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard category last year. Its theatrical success reached a record high in Latvia. The film won “Best Animated Feature” at the 97th Academy Awards and also it was nominated for Best International Feature Film as the only animation film along with live-action films. It may sound surprising but this happened before for the “Beauty and the Beast” animation many years ago in terms of being considered as "Best Film." Flow also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film and now awards are being exhibited at Latvian National Museum of Art as a national pride. That’s the power of a good story and international creative collaboration.
There is even a very sublime scene showing death in a very magical way and acceptance.
The movie’s concluding bittersweet image is strong; we see a reflection in a puddle of water, surrounded by its friends. That’s what we want and need as well; to be surrounded by friends fighting against our odds in life. The message is clear.
The music and sounds of the movie were very universally touching as well.
At the beginning of the movie, animal characters start fighting over food but later on, they learn to co-exist and put aside their differences to survive in the wilderness. That in itself is a powerful message as well as taking better care of our environment.
I recommend this movie both for adults and children the same, universally heartwarming.
During the difficult times we are going through in the world, it is nice to escape to another world of imagination and look at things from a fresh perspective and if possible watch this animation with our children.
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