Flow: Beyond the Mirror

Flow is set in a world overtaken by a huge flood. It is easy to imagine Noah’s ark crashing through the waves when we see the water rising and swallowing the enormous cat statue, almost carrying away the story’s unnamed cat protagonist. The movie offers a similar moment of rescue even though it does not feature Noah himself. A boat slowly approaches as the cat observes the floodwaters rising. The story starts with this meeting, which means the cat’s evolution from loneliness and stress to belonging and relationship.

Flow‘s main theme is praise. The movie provides multiple examples of the cat catching its thought, which results in self-recognition. The cat continuously comes into contact with itself through these reflections, whether through its image in the water, the cat statues, or the initial drawing. This concept is emphasized in two key scenes: the one with the lemur and the mirror and the movie’s last scene.

The lemur in the movie is very interested in gathering objects and storing them in a basket. At one point, they encounter a mirror and instantly attach themselves to it, gripping it firmly. The lemur sits with other lemurs on what appears to be a throne as the flood subsides, and they all gaze into the mirror to examine their reflections.

When the cat spots them, it yells for the lemur to follow. The lemur initially ignores the cat and keeps its gaze fixed on the mirror. However, they decide to follow the cat after giving it some thought.

After the cat and friends save their crew from a boat perilously perched over the border of a ridge, on the point of losing, the second significant moment of reflection occurs. After everyone is secure, the cat discovers the fabled whale, stranded and on the verge of death. Throughout the movie, the whale appears and even saves the cat once.

Upon witnessing the whale’s death at the movie’s end, the cat sits by itself, obviously in mourning, gazing into a pool of water as though attempting to process the loss. The cat’s reflection, looking back, is all that is visible at first, but then, all of a sudden, their friends appear. The movie cuts to the credits as the dog, lemur, and capybara huddle around the cat.

It is fairly obvious that the movie makes extensive use of reflection; in fact, some could argue that recognition serves as the primary theme. What does that mean, however? Recognizing yourself in others is the essence of Flow; in other words, we become who we are because we recognize one another.

Confucian concepts of relationships and selfhood are aptly embodied in the movie. According to this perspective, the self is not an isolated entity; rather, it exists due to other people, which entails a duty to look out for them. The self vanishes along with the other.

Confucian concepts contradict the dominant Western way of thinking. For example, David Hume stated that we cannot completely trust our senses because they are susceptible to deception. Hume asked how we can be certain that anything is real if our senses are the only ones that can deceive us. He argued that since we can question our senses, we all possess impressions and mental patterns rather than a firm, undeniable self.

Compared to Confucianism, which views the self as defined by relationships rather than isolated doubts, it is more cynical and less certain.

Flow questions Hume’s skepticism regarding perception and the self. The main theme of the movie is how identity is shaped by recognition. It contends that Hume’s concept of self-recognition is rather superficial, even though many philosophies concur that the self emerges through recognition. It resembles a flat, fractured reflection that fails to capture reality. Using the cat as its protagonist, the movie challenges this. It is particularly potent that this cat discovers its identity by identifying and relating to others rather than just by itself, as cats are frequently perceived as solitary creatures.

What is the primary issue with Hume’s conception of the self? We must consider what is truly wrong with the concept of the self in order to understand it. Only because of other people can you be who you are. Nobody is born alone. Nobody grows up alone. It implies that a person cannot develop ideas in complete isolation. Even the concepts and terminology we employ to describe ourselves originate outside ourselves.

Everything he had (food, water, and air) came from somewhere. Everything was broken down by the acid in his stomach, the shoes on his feet, the clothes on his back, and even the fork he used to eat with. All of it was a part of our surroundings. Everything is completely interconnected with us. Between the world and ourselves, there is no clear separation.

Hume’s doubts about the senses are not the only thing that Confucian thought rejects. It says, “Hey, we do not figure out what is real on our own anyway,” rather than worrying about our senses’ accuracy. We belong to a larger network of individuals, connections, and commonalities. Our senses are, therefore, supported if those around us experience the same sights, sounds, and sensations as we do. Since we do not live in a vacuum, we can believe what we sense.

You must first acknowledge that you truly only exist in the present. Right now, your only sensation is the ground beneath your feet. You can only touch the water at that precise moment and feel it rising around you “as it is happening.” The fish swimming by are no different. If you wish to catch one, you must be in the present with them, not distracted by other thoughts.

Only when you see the world for what it is can you truly begin to see others as a part of yourself? Everything about you is a part of you, including your clothing, the air touching your body, the muscles surrounding your bones, the skin covering them, and more. Your experience includes the sounds you hear and the scents in the air; they are not external to you.

We prefer to think of ourselves as distinct and somehow unconnected to everything else. However, that is not how it operates. Whether we like to acknowledge it or not, we are all interconnected.

We are merely particles, and particles are inextricably linked to one another. Consider the water in Flow. Water is typically considered a barrier that isolates us from the land and the world. However, water does not divide at all in the movie. Rather, it is what ties everything and everyone together.

By its very nature, water unites everything, not just the animal characters on the boat in the narrative. When you contact it, you are connected to everything that water touches. The water drives these animals to gather, connect, and locate one another.

The animals were alone before they gathered together. The cat was all alone after losing its owner. The capybara set out on its adventure by itself. The lemur searched the mirror for recognition and reasoned that it might find it within itself, similar to Hume’s doubts about the self. However, it only discovered a hollow reflection and an empty copy. Only when the lemur reached out to others did a genuine connection occur. After being left behind by its pack, the dog realized they were more preoccupied with themselves. The secretarybird comes next.

Instead of focusing on itself, the secretarybird looked to the other animals to find itself. It adopted Confucianism’s emphasis on connections and relationships instead of Hume’s cynical notion that the self is merely a collection of impressions and uncertainties. The secretarybird discovered its own identity by identifying the other. The other secretarybirds, however, disapproved of it and expelled it from their group.

The secretarybird character demonstrates Hume’s isolationism and the difficulty of Confucian thought. Finding your small group to connect with is not central to Confucianism. Rather, it encourages us to connect with those around us. It is about “you and everyone,” not “you and your group” or “you and yourself.” According to Confucian philosophy, the “I” only exists because of the other.

There is no true “I” without the other, this sense of “we.” Since they are a part of how we view and construct ourselves, we must acknowledge them. Doing so implies that we must look after them. You must ensure the other person survives because the “I” can only exist with them. You vanish if the other does.

The secretarybird connects with the cat, and the cat finds its sense of self through that connection. At one point, the secretarybird flies away, and the cat decides to follow. The cat climbs a mountain and catches up with the secretarybird at the peak. They look at each other as gravity seems to flip, and they start floating up into the sky. All around them, there are balls of water drifting in the air.

While the cat remains behind, the secretarybird continues to rise. Eventually, the secretarybird vanishes, and the cat collapses, leaving it alone. It is crucial because the cat learns to accept Confucian concepts of connection and relationships instead of Hume’s cynical view of the senses. The secretarybird had to depart for the cat to discover this lesson for itself.

The secretarybird shows us how to counter Hume’s cynical view of the senses, while water symbolizes what unites all people. The flood is turned around when the secretarybird is captured, not because the water suddenly stopped being dangerous or required a sacrifice. The threat was never really the water. Rather, it arrived to teach the cat a valuable lesson about identifying and relating to others.

Think about the cat’s only dream. It is about a herd of deer circling and closing in, and then the water crashes in, wiping everything out and waking the cat up. That dream sums up Hume’s skeptical take on things—it is like being stuck in a loop, where the group circles itself over and over, only recognizing itself without any real connection beyond that.

Any certainty the cat believed it had is shaken by the water, symbolizing Confucian thought dismantling this Humean insularity. The cat must experience a flood to learn how to interact with and identify others. Humans are, therefore, absent from the movie’s world (and the movie itself). It also explains the existence of those statues of cats. Humans are extinct because this illustrates what occurs when one adopts a completely Humean perspective of the world, in which people are so divided and alone that they can no longer truly see one another.

We are no longer truly here. We have drifted apart. Therefore, the waters must intervene and reunite us. The secretarybird is taken once it abandons Hume’s philosophy and adopts Confucian ideas because connection has finally returned.

The cat statues were humans trying to reach out and find some connection. The cat symbolizes that search. People usually think of cats as pretty solitary creatures. Moreover, the cat in Flow thought it could only relate to itself, but all it found was, well, just itself. At the film’s beginning, the cat’s familiar world starts getting swallowed up by water. The connection was right there, knocking on the cat’s door, but the cat did not notice.

The cat believed it had some recognition, but the water appeared and erased it. The cat pushes back and shuts itself off even more when the dog first tries to pull it out of its Humean bubble. The cat eventually scales a massive statue of itself, hoping it will be saved somehow.

The cat believes that by fully accepting who it is, it will be able to avoid the chaos that is about to happen to it, but this hope is futile. It cannot save itself by focusing only on itself and believing it is sufficient. The cat tries to ignore and flee from the rising water. However, the water never stops until there is nowhere more to run. The cat cannot flee from connection or the other; it cannot avoid recognition.

Flow encourages the cat to interact with people, which has the same effect on us. It helps us understand how important other people are. It helps us realize that we require other people’s approval and connection. Understanding ourselves does not make us who we are; understanding others makes us who we are. This relationship is the reason we are here. It leads us to the whale. The whale is an extremely gregarious animal. Similar to cats, whales are often considered solitary but have strong and profound relationships with others.

Although little scientific evidence supports the idea that whales have faith, we think they do. It may have nothing to do with having faith in a great higher power. Perhaps they have faith in one another. Their songs are about their shared connection and trust, so that is why they sing.

In films, water frequently represents faith and connection. Like Andrei Tarkovsky’s Nostalgia, water is a major theme in Flow. Faith is essentially the living side of water, which is life itself. What do life and faith mean if we do not believe in the living other, whom we repeatedly choose to acknowledge?

Moreover, for that reason, the water of faith and life in Flow are so potent. It feels like the death of a god when we finally see the dead whale. We may believe that without God, we are limited to relating to ourselves because of the death of God, as demonstrated by the Enlightenment and the ideas of philosophers like Hume and Søren Kierkegaard. However, that is not true. At first, we only see ourselves when we gaze into these waters of faith. What appears directly behind us, however? The other.

The movie shows a shot of the ocean in a truly lovely moment after the credits have rolled. Moreover, do you know what emerges from it? The whale. Therefore, God is still alive. Faith remains. We restore faith by recognizing and believing in one another, not just by believing in ourselves.

References

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