Is there a Latvian translation of “The Owl and the Pussycat?” Because most of this picture is a cat in a boat, with friends. I’m wondering if somehow the Edward Lear verse:
The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
Was translated in Latvian to:
A Secretarybird and Pussy-cat hit the deluge
In a rickety ramshackle tub
They got bored with some randos, and reached a crescendo
With everybody searching for grub
Probably not.
But that would make more sense than this film which seemed (a tad confusingly) both fantasy and reality at the same time. Well, it had me confused, at least.
We’re in a forest, I guess. Hard to tell. Despite the forest-y look, we follow a housecat, who soon attracts the attention of dogs. I want to say “wild dogs,” but they aren’t. The one we spend the most time on is a labrador retriever, a breed that -from what I can tell- hasn’t the ability to go wild. Was Old Yeller a lab? Never mind.
Pretty soon, a flood happens, and the cat -despite being a cat- has to befriend a capybara, a lemur, and a secretarybird. And all of these animals are animals. They look and behave -more-or-less- like the thing they are supposed to be.
If you’re confused here, you are not alone. My mind screamed, “HOW ARE THESE THINGS ALL TOGETHER?!” They all belong in different parts of the world. I mean, lemur (Madagascar) and capybara (South America) alone means a zoo must be involved, right? But there is no evidence that these are zoo animals, or ever were zoo animals. So why are they together?
Who knows?
Now, if you can get by the zoological nightmare -which I could not- the movie is quite clever, if a little rambling. There’s a flood; there’s a cat; there are a bunch of animals trying not
to drown. Despite differences and natural enmity, the group has to navigate together in several sense of the word. How do you feed a capybara? How do you teach a cat to swim? How do you make a cat and dog get along? How do you get a greedy lemur to be part of a team?
All of these questions, and many more, are answered in the film – and all without a single word of dialogue. This Latvian excursion can be enjoyed by any audience in the world as is. I think there’s a special gift in making film immediately accessible to the world. We get the dilemma: water, water, everywhere and natural enemies forced to cohabitate. This is a reasonable dilemma, even if the action and the plot just drifts along.
I want to love Flow, but I just can’t get past the part where none of these creatures belong together and there doesn’t seem to be any sort of plan here. However, the more I think about it, the more respect I have for this film. I have no idea who writer/director Gints Zilbalodis is, but I can’t wait for the next Gintswork. This film may well win the Oscar for best animated feature. I won’t root for it, but I won’t root against it, either.
There once was a Latvian cat
Who avoided trouble this way and that
When floods came a callin’
It had to learn trawlin’
And sharing his dry habitat
Rated PG, 85 Minutes
Director: Gints Zilbalodis
Writer: Gints, Zilbalodis, Matiss Kaza
Genre: Heyyyyyyyy, this isn’t Pixar!
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: People desperate for non-American films to win Oscars
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: WTF world is this?
