A grey cat is watching its reflection in a lake in the forest when it is chased away by a pack of dogs. They in turn are all chased away by a herd of reindeer fleeing away from a giant flood. The flood engulfs the entire area, so the cat boards a boat with a dog, a lemur and a capybara. They flow through the ocean aimlessly, and the cat catches fish for food. On a patch of land, the cat is attacked by a herd of secretarybirds, but is saved by a good secretarybird who protects it. As a punishment, the other birds break the wing of the good secretarybird, which thus joins the cat and the others sailing on the boat. On a rock pillar, the secretarybird is beamed up in the sky, and disappears in the light. The water recedes, and the cat, the dog, the lemur and the capybara exit from the boat back on land.
An allegorical minimalist film without any dialogue or human characters, Gints Zilbadois' "Flow" is a raw, astringent and subconscious adventure that breaks the "animation monopoly" held by big budget studios by relying on a free and open-source animation software, thereby achieving a breakthrough on the field of the independent cinema. The storyline is strange and subject to several interpretations, since, by taking only the perspective of the animals, the viewers are not given any context. Is the sudden excessive flood, which covers the entire land surface, a symbol for sea level rise caused by climate change? It would fit with the world where abandoned buildings are seen, and the dogs and other domesticated animals roam freely, in a time where humans went extinct. Since the cat and other animals travel in a boat across this ocean, is it a meditation on the need for disparate groups to cooperate in order to survive during crisis times? And since they have no say in this water current, and their boat just follows the flow, is it a symbol for the voyage in life where everyone is just a pawn of destiny? Is it a meditation on the relativity of circumstances in life, since the flood at first hints that a small land animal like the cat will perish, and that big water animals like the whale will flourish, but when the flood recedes, the whale is stranded on land? All of them could be true. One certainty is that the cat overcomes its fear of water, when it learns how to swim and catch fish, through which the movie speaks about overcoming one's fears and learning to stand on its own. One sequence disrupts the movie stylistically (secretarybird being elevated by a beam of light) in a strange paranormal, religious (?) moment. Is it a divine reward for being good during dark times? "Flow" needed more ingenuity and creativity, since it is a little bit monotone after a while, yet it offers food for thought.
Grade:++
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