November 22nd, 2025. Weekend is here and I have no plans for the next two days. Mom went on a trip and will be back after 8 days. Yash is also out of town. There’s nothing much to do. I will watch a movie in the afternoon and will go out later in the evening for a walk.
Content
Flow - Summary
08:53PM. It was a nice day. I watched the movie Flow today. I had been planning to watch it for a long time. I will just go through my reflection about the movie. The animation and the plot was amazing and I loved it entirely. Plus, it had animals in it so that’s always a bonus.
The movie starts with a black cat roaming around drinking water near a water stream. There’s a group of dog that comes there and the cat goes into hiding. We see the dogs finding fish in the water and then fighting with each other over it. Later, they see the cat and start chasing her till the cat manages to hide from them. Suddenly, a herd of deer is shown to be running away from something. There is a huge wave of water which throws away the cat and the dogs and they start flowing with it. There is a golden retriever in the pack of dogs who gets seperated from the other dogs and starts following the cat.
The world that is shown at this point seems to suggest that there has been some apocalypse and there are no humans in this world. There seems to be water everywhere and the level of water keeps on increasing. The pack of dogs are reunited again and the cat is alone. Anyways, the cat seems to be skeptical of them even though the golden retriever seems to be friendly. The suspense increases as the cat is standing on a tall statue and is surrounded by water and the level is increasing continuously. There is no way out. A huge whale is seen coming out of the water which scares the cat. The water is almost at the toes of the cat when it sees a boat at a distance coming towards the cat. When the boat is near, she jumps inside it. There is a Capybara inside the boat. He looks chill. The cat is skeptical of him too.
Later, we see a lemur and a bird coming to the boat for a short appearance. The cat being scared of the bird, falls out of the boat into the water and is unable to climb back again. She starts drowing. Her eyes gets closed. But the whale came to the rescue and brought the cat back to the surface on its back. The bird swoops in and carries the cat and drops her back in the boat. The cat is really scared of everything around her. The lemur comes back into the scene. He is seen to be collecting a lot of materials and things from the ruins. And he is very possesive about them. He joins the boat as the water is now flowing everywhere. The lemur has a mirror which he loves the most. The three of them - cat, capybara and the lemur halts near a small piece of land. The lemur finds a floating ball which he collects. We see the golden retriever comes back and is greeted by the capybara and is excited to meet everyone. The cat tries to find some fish in the water but is having difficulty. That’s when the bird comes with a fish in its beak and drops it in front of the cat. But a couple of other birds come in and takes away the fish. It seemed like they were unhappy with the bird that helped the cat. We see the group of birds and they start chasing the cat possibly to attack her. The cat is cornered and has nowhere to run. The “alpha” bird of the family is about to attack the cat when the friendly bird comes in between them to defend the cat. The bird is willing to fight its own family to defend the weak cat. The two birds have a fight and the friendly bird is hurt badly and falls to the ground. Its family abandons him, break his wings and all of them fly away leaving the bird on the ground. The cat sees the sacrifice that the bird made for her and now starts trusting the bird.
The five characters - the cat, the capybara, the golden retriever, the bird and the lemur gets on the boat and move forward. They reach a city which looks beautiful but is halfly submerged in water. They change the course of the boat inside the city. The golden retriever becomes playful and takes the floating ball that lemur had collected. It falls in the water and the lemur loses its control. It attacks the bird who was controlling the boat. The cat and the capybara falls in the water. Meanwhile, the boat gets stuck in a tree. The cat comes back on the boat but capybara tries to get the floating ball back. But when he notices something in the water, he falls back to the boat. It was the whale. It makes a huge jump from the water and goes back inside again. The boat moves and is freed from the tree. They move forward and in their way they see the rest of the dogs that we saw earlier in the story. They are stuck in a tower. The bird doesn’t want to change the boat’s direction but the capybara, the golden retriever and the cat pursues him. He leaves the control of the boat and the capybara moves the boat towards the pack of dogs. They jump on the boat but are annoying as hell. They take the lemur’s mirror and it breaks when lemur tries to fetch it back.
There is a bad storm and we see these huge rock structures almost touching the sky. The bird while struggling to fly, goes toward one of the rocks and the cat follows. When the cat reaches the top, she sees the bird looking into the sky. We see water droplets ascend in the sky, and soon after the bird and the cat starts ascending too in what seems like a light in the sky. The bird goes into the light while the cat falls back to the ground. The cat runs back to the bottom of the rock but when she looks around the boat is very far away from her. She starts swimming towards the boat and finds the floating ball that lemur lost earlier. She holds on to it while drifting away slowly in the water.
All of a sudden, the water level starts to decrease. The tress, the plants and land starts to emerge and the cat is back again on its feet. The flood is gone. The cat moves around and sees the basket in which lemur used to collect his stuff. She follows the scent and reaches a place where the lemur is with his own kind. A bunch of lemurs are sitting together looking into the broken mirror together. The cat goes to them and meows in a way that her lemur friends should join her back. The lemur ignores her and keeps looking into the mirror. The cat looks visibly sad and starts to move forward. As she is walking alone, we see the lemur running towards the cat in a way to show her something. They reach a cliff where we see the boat hanging from a tree and about to fall. The capybara and the golden retriever along with the other dogs are stuck in the boat. The boat is slowly losing its grip from the tree. The dogs jump out of the boat to the cliff but the capybara is still stuck and about to fall. The cat goes on top of the tree and passes the end of the rope that was stuck to the tree to the dogs and lemur below. They start pulling the boat towards the cliff. The cat falls in the boat and is now with the capybara fighting for her life. Suddenly, a rabbit ran past them and the dogs (except the golden retriever) leaves the rope and starts chasing the rabbit. Now, only the golden retriever and the lemur are left to help the capybara and the cat. They pull the rope with all their strength and the boat came closer to the cliff and the cat and the capybara where able to make the jump. The boat falls down in the pit.
Suddenly, there is a sound. As the cat looks around, the herd of deer is running the same way as the beginning of the movie. The cat panics and starts running towards that large rock structure where the bird lost its life. As she is running, she passes an open field and notices the whale lying on the ground and struggling without water. She reach near the whale and affectionately purrs over its body. She finds a small water patch nearby and looks into it. Meanwhile, her friends - the capybara, the golden retriever and the lemur joins her and stare in the water together.
Flow - Thoughts
Now, the movie is much more than I have explained it in the above paragraphs. It’s the music, the animation and the depth that makes it so nice. But a lot can be said about the characters this movie has and how they develop and grow together in the story.
From what I took from the story is that it is about survival, balance and co-operation. How these animals were trying to survive the flood. How their perception of each other changed over time and how each of them had their own values. Let me talk about each individual animal at a time to understand what made them unique.
The cat as it is evident from the movie poster is the main character and the one whom we follow the most. Initially, the cat was shy and was paranoid about having friends. And that is fine because we see her getting chased by the pack of dogs. But when the flood hits, she has no other choice but to take help from others. But even though she was taking help, she would still hiss and stay away from others. I think she changed only after the bird defended her over his own family. The bird lost its wing just to save the cat from getting attacked. Maybe this is when the cat realized that not everyone is trying to hurt her. I personally can take this as a learning as I am also paranoid about everything. Even the golden retriever was friendly to her and the capybara saved her when the water was almost near her feet. She was also scared of the whale who saved her life. And she realized all this near the end when we see her griefing over the whale’s body and when she risks her life to save the capybara.
Then comes the pack of dogs. Apart from the golden retriever, every one of them were bad. The golden retriever was friendly and always excited when finding new friends. He was what you imagine a dog to be. Playful, excited, easily distracted and friendly. Even though he was seperated from his pack, he still forced the bird to save his dog friends when they were stuck.
The lemur was something different and kind of had similarities like a human would have. He was materialistic and only cared about his stuff. He would get mad if someone took his things or even played with them. When the dog and the bird throws his floating ball in the water, he loses his cool and attacks the bird. He got sad when the mirror that he loved the most got broken. But at the end, even he realized what was more important in the world. When he was sitting with his other lemur friends looking into his broken mirror, he made the choice of leaving everything behind and going with the cat who was his friend. He chose friendship over materialism.
The capybara was the calmest, gentle and sometime lazy of them all. He helped everyone at some point or the other. He saved the cat, he saved the lemur and also helped him bring his basket on the boat. He went to get the floating ball of the lemur when it fell out from the boat. When the pack of dogs needed help, he was the one who first went to the bird and forced him to move so he could turn the boat to help them. And at last, all of it came back to him. When he was in trouble and hanging from the tree, everyone went to help him. He valued companionship over anything.
Then there was the bird who stood the tallest among all. Even with the flood, he had everything. While the other animals were struggling in water, the bird had flight and freedom. He could have just stayed with his family and enjoyed his life. But he chose to help the cat. He defended the weak and it resulted in him getting banished from his own family. He became annoyed as we can see later when he kicks the ball out of the boat and when the lemur attacked him. He gave up everything in the end and decided it was time to leave. All the animals had lost a lot of things due to unseen circumstances, but the bird lost because he chose to do what he thought was right.
At last, there was the whale. A creature so huge that everyone feared him. But it was him, who saved the cat and also helped the boat get out of the tree when it was stuck in the submerged city.
Overall, this is what I felt watching the movie. But everyone can have their own perspective of the animals. I already explained how the story revolved around survival and co-operation between the different animals. But there is another side of the story. When the flood starts, we feel bad for the cat, the dog, the lemur and the capybara. We see them struggling to survive. But at the same time, this flood gave life to whale. The whale explored all the places, the submerged city and the rock structures because of this flood. What saved the other animals became the reason for the death of the whale. This is what the cat realizes at the end of the movie. When it looks down in the water and sees her reflection while the whale is lying beside her struggling to live. Every survival comes with a price that is paid elsewhere. It is not something good or bad but it is just the reality.
Harry Potter Café
After finshing the movie, I went for a haircut. Got a french cut beard for the first time in my life 😛. Then while coming back home, I saw this new café near my house. From the outside, I saw this painting of Snape holding Lily. I got curious and decided to go inside.
It was a small, cozy cafe and was themed after Harry Potter. I ordered a cappucino and went upstairs to see the place. There were a lot of paintings. There was a book section which I explored and I took The Magical Worlds of Harry Potter to read while enjoying my coffee. I enjoyed the place as it had a great vibe. The food was nice too. I can think of making it my regular place to go - even for working on weekdays.
So that’s it! That was my day today. It felt good writing this much today. Hopefully, will come back with new topics. Adios.
