FLOW (Straume) is another one of those animated features I ask for sometimes, the type that respects the medium enough to do something one-of-a-kind instead of just making up some cartoon guys and grafting them onto one of the handful of available formulas. This one is from Latvia but there’s no dubbed vs. subtitled issue because (hey, kinda like ROBOT DREAMS) it has no dialogue. It’s about a cat and some other animals wandering around, they are only anthropomorphized in the sense that they eventually pick up some unlikely talents like controlling the rudder of a boat. They’re 3-D computer animated in realistic settings but their designs are a bit stylized, lo-res almost. A style that looks great on a budget.

It follows a cat who’s out in a forest when he sees a pack of dogs catching, then fighting over, a fish. He makes the short-sighted choice to take the fish and run off, so he gets chased. There is fleeing and hiding, he seems to get away, and then the dogs are charging at him… past him. Oh shit, what are they running from?

Well, it’s a deer stampede. This poor cat almost gets Mufasa’d, it’s terrifying. And what are the deer running from? Turns out to be a tsunami. It’s kind of a disaster movie, I guess – an ensemble of animals getting thrown together in a situation and trying to survive.

Much of the movie is about making like Obi Wan Kenobi and heading for the higher ground. The title must refer to the water that carries this group of animals around after they wind up in a small boat. I don’t mean this in the bad way, but it reminds me of a video game. The wandering and exploring of an environment, sound effects but not words, the convenient finding of important objects like this boat… there’s even a Myst-like feel to the little clues about what was here before – a house where somebody drew pictures of and made wooden carvings of cats. The cat lives there now. Maybe he lived with people once. Maybe his ancestors did.

What’s constantly impressive is how perfectly the animators capture animal behavior and personality. The sounds seem to be recorded from real animals, they move like the pets we’ve had, they react in goofy ways, not with human understanding of things. There are almost no cheats. It’s not like, for example, SPIRIT: STALLION OF THE CIMARRON where the horses don’t talk but do have eyebrows and smiles. They’re just animals who act as animals – the cat scratches at a wagging lemur tail, or chases a reflection from a mirror the lemur becomes attached to and carries around. The dogs will drop anything to chase a bunny. They’re assholes, but they mean well. The capybara is lazy and attracts flies. The lemur eats some of the flies.

There’s plenty of animal peril, plus the not-so-assuring implication that we’re watching a post-human era, but the overall feeling is kind of soothing. You get to be in quiet nature, absolutely no jibber jabber, it’s mostly sunny, the music is gentle, you got no job, no appointments, no place to be, lots of drifting. Flowing. And it’s pleasing to have a narrative that’s simple, for you to decode at your own leisure, or not. There are many mysteries: who made giant cat statues, and what did they mean by it? What the fuck is up with those huge birds? Did one go through a portal? Did he go to Bird Heaven? Return to Bird Planet? There are some hints of the magical or spiritual, plus the allegorical nature of different species surviving a flood together on a boat and learning to work together and care about each other. I’m not sure how much is there that I’m not picking up on, but it’s a movie that doesn’t require comprehension. Just live in the moment. Just be a cat.

Like ROBOT DREAMS, FLOW is a good argument for animation coming from countries without a strongly established animation industry. They’re movies by maverick artists with an idea of something odd they want to do, and they put together a means to do it. I’m sure it helps that they don’t require translation, but it’s heartening that mostly just being really good and getting some acclaim they’ve earned audiences around the world. Animation is a beautiful artform. Much respect to the artists who treat it as one.

Director/co-writer Gints Zilbalodis is only 30 years old. He’s made six shorts since 2010 and he has one previous feature, AWAY (2019), also silent, and done all by himself. This one he made over five years with a team of about 45 people, primarily using the free, open source software Blender. He told Cartoon Brew he and co-writer Matiss Kaža did write a traditional script to get funding, but then he made the animatic from memory. FLOW has already won a Golden Globe, and has a good shot at an Oscar, so I’m happy that in that interview he says, “I am going to try to maintain this independence. On a smaller budget, we have more freedom to tell personal stories, to explore techniques, and take bigger swings.” That’s the spirit.