The cat and Co - Flow

Ioana Satmari • 3/24/2025

We find ourselves in a world where humans have suddenly vanished entirely, yet their traces seem fresh. Straume/Flow, Latvia’s submission for Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards, directed by Gints Zilbalodis and written by Zilbalodis and Matīss Kaža, is an animation devoid even of voice actors, as most animations typically rely on.

Built on the premise of removing humans entirely from the landscape, the film still remains deeply anchored in human practices. All the events seem to mirror what we, as humans, might do. The animals “talk” to each other, and because they communicate so much through sounds, barking, meowing, and others I’m not sure how to describe, the film doesn’t credit the idea of a world inaccessible to us due to its unfamiliar social codes. It’s not a world operating on dimensions beyond human understanding.

The animals constantly express themselves through sound but also through paraverbal communication that doesn’t naturally belong to them, which brings a lot of humanity into the film. The focus on creating a film entirely devoid of people felt palpable. Yet, in trying so hard to exclude the idea, it becomes even more present.

The narrative structure is strongly reminiscent of a fairytale. The main character is a cat trying to escape a flood, and in doing so, it gains several companions: a dog, a capybara, a lemur, and a bird. Each new friend gives their loyalty and trust in the others. On its journey, the cat encounters a series of animalistic challenges solved in very human ways. The journey grows perilous: they overcome the first obstacle, then the second, and bonds between the cat and the others it meets along the way, strengthen.

In the end, two things lingered in my mind. The first is that I expected to get to know the characters better, to understand what defines them. They lacked well-rounded profiles. It’s admittedly difficult to achieve this when you can’t rely on language as a catalyst to shape interactions between characters, creating dialogues that reveal their personalities. Here lies the contradiction again: if there hadn’t been that trace of something suggesting a crossing into the human realm, perhaps I wouldn’t have sought more from the character development.

The second thought was: “These animals are heading to the city.” During their flood journey, the five animals share the same boat, which they know how to steer, eventually reaching an abandoned city.

The animation style is relatively rudimentary. The textures are unpolished, giving the impression that the characters could be toys sitting on a store shelf. It recalls a 2D animation aesthetic and carries a hint of nostalgia, but not fully enough to make it clear that this was the intention.

The animation, the story, and the humanized non-human nature of the characters didn’t quite mesh well. Straume/Flow is a charming tale, but something doesn’t quite connect.