The Movie"Flow" Makes a Housecat Myth for Us Cat-Lovers
Of all the "Far Side" panels I recall, there's one that never stops cracking me up. A cow, snake, and squid are on the move together, and an old couple looks on at this weird scene. One of them utters, "looks like one of those stupid Incredible Journey things."
With "Flow," we are about a third of the way there. A housecat, golden retriever, lemur, capybara, secretary bird, and whale make an incredible journey to somewhere, via a boat. This is the Ark without Noah.
In fact there's no humans in the film, and no talking animals either, even though this scenario in the past would definitely have necessitated someone talking, a voiceover narrator at least, as in the Homeward Bound fare.
"Flow" plays it straight; these are realistic animals, meowing and growling and honking and meeping. Well, except for the lemur, who somehow meditates and also collects junk. He's a real picker and a horder, like the human thrifters I know.
You might be asking where in the world do a cat, lemur, capybara, and secretary bird exist together. I asked myself the same during the movie. Truth is, I don't know. This is a movie fantastyland, despite the realistic animals.
I can tell you the story in a sentence: a housecat experiences a tsunami and then a flood, and finds itself on a boat that contains the animals I’ve already mentioned. The boat sails to lands unknown, as the animals learn to cohabitate.
"Flow" is some combination of realism, early 2000s videogame cut-scene animations, cute animals-getting-along-unusually Internet videos, and environmental mythmaking.
Do all of those go together? I'll give this movie the benefit of the doubt and say three out of four ain't bad. But the risks here is that these unusual strands brought together -- like the unusual grouping of animals on the ark -- could annoy any hardhearted realist.
In truth I am a bit of that realist, reader, and I'm very sad to say it.
Let me give you a bit of my bona fides first though: I am a crazy cat lady. Always loved housecats, I've got three adopted strays right now, I talk to them regularly, and et cetera. Some of my first memories as a human were playing with kittens at my grandparents’ farm.
But my current housecats don't act like this movie's cat, not entirely. They aren't buddies with my beagle at all and never will be. I know they'd kill certain animals with glee. I've seen them do it.
Yet "Flow" does away with a cat’s Darwinian tendencies altogether, even though its representation of animal movements and sounds is more accurate than 99.9% of the cartoon animal fare you've ever seen.
No matter: this movie's got it's own beauty. The forms are what make people fall in love with “Flow.”
The "flow" of that title may refer to the flood in the film that the animals endure, to the endless stretches of water.
It also refers to the camera, really the animator's panel, moving and gliding in extraordinarily hypnotic rhythms. These filmmakers have studied Iñárritu's movies. Long takes abound that glide, soar, pause, pan aggressively, smoothly move forward, and in general dance about. There’s several lovely shots that lasts minutes long.
Because "Flow" doesn't have a clear destination for the characters to arrive at, as movie plots usually announce, it's the camera's constant dancing that features most prominently.
This is another one of those films I could use ambiently, though it isn't slow or monotonous by any stretch.
The experiment here is one that fits with the current zeitgeist: what is a world without humans for animals? The result is somewhat predictable. Every animal is cute, loveable, and personable, while the moments they are in peril could draw strong emotion from a human audience for these poor creatures. One doesn't have to wonder that if they were replaced by human characters that they wouldn't draw that same emotion, not even close.
It's trendy to fall in love with animals faster than or well over and above humans, even though -- and even us cat lovers know this -- cats are semi-feral and would eat us if they could. If this lovely movie had come out during a time where I wouldn't be as skeptical about its philosophical underpinnings, relative to contemporary cultural context, I would love this movie much more.
As a sealed-off work, if I don't consider it next to the extreme love for feral animals now manifest in our world, the movie possesses many glorious wonders. In a total rarity for me, I may listen to the soundtrack as a musical work all by itself.
In other words, considering the representations of animals here, I have to tell my inner Darwinist tendencies to "shut up."
Suspend therefore your disbelief, and believe that a cow, squid, and snake could journey together — or I mean a dog, cat, capybara, lemur, and whale!
(Note that “Flow” is now available for rent on various streaming services.)