Animated films have taken us to a variety of places and let us encounter all manner of characters, and they make us feel, which says something incredible about the fact that they started out as sketches or lines of code in a computer.

Flow does something we don’t often see in animated films, its characters, a variety of animals all behave naturally in their interactions. They aren’t anthropomorphized, they didn’t step out of a Disney or Bluth film, and they don’t have celebrity voices.

This dialogue-free film follows Cat as he tries to navigate an ecological disaster, a massive flood, that is driving him from his home. There are no humans left, or at least none seen in the film, so nature and the animal kingdom have claimed dominance, but even they are at the mercy of the changing conditions around them.

Cat finds himself on a lone sailboat with a goofy golden retriever, a lemur, and others, thrown together by chance, and hoping to survive together in this tale of sacrifice, death and rebirth. A natural cycle that is echoed in the film’s events even as Cat learns to accept those around him as his new friends and family.

Featuring some stunning animation, the main characters look like paintings brought to life, and are filled with recognizable behaviours that you’ll see in your own pets.

Told over an hour and a half, Flow enraptures audiences, outside of the film’s earned laughs, the audience was held in thrall by the film, the images, and the characters. As we join Cat on his journey he doesn’t understand everything he sees, but he and the film are intuitive and emotive.

An absolutely beautiful watch, this animated film will promote discussion, and will also remind the viewers of how magical an animated film can be, and how beautiful this art is.

Flow screens Tuesday at Saturday at TIFF, I hope you get a chance to see it because this one should be sought out.