The Best Post-Apocalyptic Movie Of The Year Stars A Cat (And Has No Dialogue) [Annecy]

The Annecy Animation Film Festival is a place of wonder and discovery. It's an event where you can catch the premiere of the latest "Despicable Me" movie and the return of the Looney Tunes to the big screen, but you can also enjoy teases for the next big thing in studio animation (like Chris Sanders' "The Wild Robot") and appreciate small independent films from around the world.

It's usually in the latter category that the biggest gems can be uncovered, such as "Flow," the sophomore feature by Gints Zilbalodis (who previously wowed the animation world with 2019's video game-inspired "Away," which he animated entirely on his own). This is a beautiful, poignant movie about a group of animals trying to survive in the wild, told entirely without dialogue and animated in a naturalistic way — with the animals not being anthropomorphized but acting just like animals (echoing the golden era of Disney and movies like "Bambi").

"Flow" is also a kick-ass post-apocalyptic movie. You see, when we first meet the film's young cat protagonist, human life seems to have perished and all traces of them have disappeared without a sign. It happened relatively recently, too, judging by how the cat finds an artist's house with the bed unmade but not yet covered in dust or anything. Even without humans to worry about, the cat still finds itself in a forest full of dangers. We watch as our feline hero is forced to outwit a pack of five bully dogs, evade a deer stampede, and even avoid an attack by a secretarybird. Oh, and did I mention there's a flood?

Seen from a human perspective, "Flow" takes place after the end of the world. However, for the remaining animals, this is but the cusp of their own end of times. That's because, as if the vanishment of human civilization wasn't enough, a torrential flood quickly inundates the entire forest, with huge trees disappearing under the waves, hills becoming islands, and a huge monument to a cat slowly flooding until it vanishes under the water. That's not to mention the giant Lovecraftian whale-like monster (which would make James Wan salivate) that suddenly has rules over this new world. Later, we see the ruins of what looks like an ancient metropolis with its own massive amphitheater, now filled with huge canals after being flooded.

The actual film is part hang-out movie, as our protagonist cat finds refuge alongside a capybara in a sailboat that becomes a tiny ark to escape the flood. They are soon joined by members of several other animal species, including an enthusiastic labrador, a lemur collecting every shiny object it can find, and a secretarybird that mostly keeps to itself while navigating the boat. But "Flow" is also part disaster movie and is filled with thrilling set pieces, with characters being separated from the boat (usually the cat) and encountering other animals that bear ill intent. After all, the world has ended, and it is now changing into something even more dangerous and isolated: a Waterworld (one without Kevin Costner, mind you).

With "Flow," Zilbalodis and the film's director of animation Léo Silly-Pélissier have created a world straight out of a picture book, rendering the forest backgrounds with exquisite textures and balancing the beauty of the natural world with a sense of awe and terror over its natural disasters. Mixing 3D animations with painted textures, "Flow" looks made by hand yet polished.

"Furiosa" focused on the chaos and violence of the end of the world, finding tragedy and fun in the apocalypse. Earlier this year, "Fallout" similarly found hilarity amid the bleakness of a world ended by pure capitalist greed. Even "Sweet Tooth" recently gave the end of the world a dark fairy tale tone. What "Flow" does is echo movies like "The Road," which took a more meditative, naturalistic, and quiet approach to the feeling of the vast majority of the population just disappearing, and apply it to the idea of the natural world winning and kicking our asses. This is one of the best animated movies of the year, and one of the most unique takes on the post-apocalypse in a film in a long time.

"Flow" has yet to receive a U.S. theatrical release date.