Flow (Straume)

 A capybara, a cat, a dog, a bird and a lemur get into a boat...

 It sounds like the start of a kid's joke, or maybe a setup for one of those 'cross the river' puzzles where the fox eats the chicken or the chicken the grain.

 No animals eat each other* in Flow, a strange, lush animated piece from Lithuania. The opposite holds true: As far as meaning can be parsed from this enigmatic movie, it's all about bonds, empathy and cooperation.

 Cat lives alone amongst the remains of a long-gone human - a forest bungalow, wooden carvings of cats of all sizes. It's a good life, it seems, so it's upsetting when the waters come, ever-rising, and consume everything the cat has ever known. The sea will claim everything, a wise man once said (and then wrote a video game about it).

 Before drowning, Cat makes it to a lonely boat drifting in the water crewed by a lone, easy-going capybara. As the little sailboat is taken by wind and current through a bunch of different flooded environments they are joined by a standoffish crane, a friendly golden retriever, and a highly-strung lemur. The film follows the boat and its motley crew as they have some very gentle adventures, bounce against each other in different ways; We witness through their eyes beautiful environments  - a half-drowned city, submerged woods, pillars that seemingly stretch all the way to the stars - and events ranging from the mundane to the majestic and strange.

 Not a single line of dialog is spoken. The animals are only slightly anthropomorphized, but beyond the fact that they all seem to know how to operate a rudder and some pretty advanced non-verbal communication, the film does a good job of letting them be natural. The cat in particular is a joy to watch - the animation for his face in particular is extremely well-observed. Its body language is a little less impressive; Good most of the time, but some of it fell a little stiff and uncanny-valley-esque.

 The art style is sumptuous; All the critters are simple and cel-shaded, but very expressive, while the places they float by are beautifully rendered; Director Gints Zilbalodis and his crew frame everything via a restless, ever moving virtual camera. It did feel a little video-gamey a few times, especially because there's one specific game (called Submerged) which has very similar scenes of strange whales cavorting in the ruins of a submerged city; I'd be very surprised if they weren't an influence here.

 The story is simple - schematic, even; There are a couple of strange, unexplained surprises, but they feel more like random weirdness than a coherent mystery to decode. The plot is not really important here; It really is all about the flow.

**: Well, except fish; Flow does not extend its sympathy to the poor fish, only its mammal and avian life.