The movie “Flow” (in Latvian, it’s “Straume”) completely abandons dialogue, with the total absence of human language. Let’s delve deep into the analysis of this work and its connotations together. As the director, Gints Zilbalodis, himself put it, “Flow” was born from a “torrent of fantasy.” In fact, this animated film presents itself as a free expression of images, with every detail immersed in the “flow” that drives the narrative. From a technical perspective, the editing of the film seamlessly connects each scene, and the story develops within a unified space-time dimension. In this unique space-time, completely different species of flora and fauna coexist in the same habitat, and time, without human measurement, becomes a continuous stream of moments.
“Flow” is set in a post-apocalyptic era. At the beginning of the story, a natural disaster that may have already occurred and is highly likely to strike again is presented: a devastating flood. This terrifies our protagonist, a lonely cat, which has to learn, together with other animals, to adapt and face the continuous dangers. They are truly “in the same boat.” Meanwhile, humanity, which had been constantly building its “Tower of Babel,” has already perished due to its own arrogance.
Humanity’s endless challenges to nature have ultimately led to its own decline, leaving behind only the ruins of its once magnificent creations. The most striking aspect of the film lies in the absence of dialogue and human language. The fact that the animals don’t speak is not a flaw but rather a silent declaration of belonging. This realistic setting makes “Flow” distinctly different from the styles of animation giants like Disney and DreamWorks (fortunately!). The latter’s repetitive portrayal of a fully anthropomorphized universe has become tiresome.
In terms of its connotations, “Flow” seems to be telling us that in a world filled with environmental exploitation, wars, and human alienation, it’s very difficult to find inner peace. We live in a society without fixed coordinates, where everything is in flux, and almost nothing can maintain stability and solidity. Bauman, the theorist of “liquid modernity,” foresaw all this long before post-humanism plunged us into an underwater world where both reality and consciousness are at risk of dissipating. The real question is how we will navigate water, an element of transformation par excellence, and how we will adapt to and be shaped by the flow of change, in which our little cat, though frightened yet brave, is deeply immersed.
So, how does “Flow” depict reality? It has no cultural ethos and no symbols that humans once strived to interpret. Or rather, it lacks the interpreter—the poet who used to endow things with additional meanings. Everything exists just as it appears, without a name; the dialectical relationship between consciousness and the object is broken, replaced by a direct existence that has not been filtered by reason.
The survivors, though not communicating through language, interact with each other through the sounds they make. The “language” they use is the most essential and necessary one, serving merely as a tool for survival. Free from the shackles of words (which, in the human world, have also been one of the sources of chaos and destruction), animals as different as a cat, a dog, a capybara, a secretary bird, and a lemur are able to form a group. However, their unity is a fragile and seemingly impossible “all for one, one for all.” In fact, “Flow” is not a naive bedtime story but rather shows the audience how difficult it is to achieve such unity given the instinctive egoism that governs the behavior of most animals.
The true significance of “Flow” lies in making the audience face up to the (arduous) mission that humanity in the film failed to accomplish: without cooperation and respect for others (including nature, our common home), the survival of living beings is out of the question. We need a deeper level of empathy to solidify our increasingly “liquid” relationships, and at the same time, we must recognize that the delicate environmental balance needs to be protected, not controlled.
We can’t help but ask: since humanity is regarded as the peak of organic evolution, how will a world created by and for humans survive after the disappearance of humanity? Setting aside the exaggerated claims that depict humans as cosmic destroyers, perhaps we should think (if we are capable of doing so) about what meaning lies in a film where humans no longer have a say but are still the only ones who can imagine and construct the future.
It is certain that Zilbalodis has created an aesthetic style that combines colors, silence, and primal sounds, and this attention to detail is truly rare in the field of animated films. The director’s choice of using Blender software to shape the characters and their movements, making the lighting and special effects highly appealing, is decisive and revolutionary.
The audience is thus immersed in a captivating sensory experience, especially when deeply touched by the shocking plot twist at the end of the film. In the end, philosophical contemplation and deep thinking may no longer matter. Perhaps writing interpretations for a work whose greatest charm lies in its silence is itself a futile attempt to impose meaning on something that doesn’t need it. After all, this is just an animated story, and it is perfectly reasonable for children to simply see it as the (wonderful) adventure of a group of friends on their way to a safer place.