Multispecies stories and empathy building
Reflections on the animation film "Flow" through the lens of a multispecies researcher.
In the first essay of the Multispecies Digest, I want to reflect on a movie that surprised and captivated my multispecies brain: Flow, directed by Gints Zilbalodis.
Disclaimer: All views are my own and do not reflect views of my employers nor other affiliated organizations. Notes are not peer reviewed, do not constitute scientific theories or findings, and can change as new information emerges.
Flow / Straume
In the past year, Flow (Straume in Latvian) has charmed the minds and hearts of movie watchers and critics. Featuring no dialogue, the film follows a cat, a dog, a capybara, a secretarybird, and a ring-tailed lemur in an apparently post-human world, trying to survive as the water level dramatically rises around them.
The movie has received countless awards, including an Oscar for best animated film, a Golden Globe for best animated feature film, and the European Film Award.
You can watch the trailer here.
A biased watcher
As I entered the movie theater, I knew that I would see the movie from a highly biased perspective. Flow is a huge accomplishment for Gints Zilbalodis and his team. Even further, many in Latvia see the film as a national accomplishment that puts Latvia–a small country in North-Eastern Europe–on the global maps and showcases Latvian abilities. So, as a Latvian, I felt proud of the film and its team and knew I wouldn’t be able to shake this optimistic view, even if the film turned out to be an overhyped dud.
I had not anticipated, however, that I would be unable to leave out my multispecies researcher bias either. During and after the movie, I could not stop thinking about the multispecies themes in it, remembering the gasps and laughter of the audience as they watched the animals act, the eerie sadness of a human-less world with masses of human clutter, and the beauty of a story told through the lens of animals.
I could not stop finding themes and symbolism related to the topics I want to cover here in Multispecies Digest that can help us see the world for what it is–a multispecies entanglement–and to help us ask questions that make us humans at least a tad bit less selfish and self-centred.
Multispecies themes
The world is full of nonhuman stories, lives, and challenges, yet we humans often seem to only see and value our own.
An aspect that stands out throughout the movie is the absence of humans. The animal characters are not anthropomorphized: they do not talk, walk, act, or emote as if they are humans. They do not have human-like agendas or reasoning. By design, the animals retain behavioral characteristics of their species. In a Los Angeles Times article, Robert Abele describes it well: “We get to know animals as animals, not as vaudevillians engineered for maximum cuteness.” A couple of instances made me think that, ok, it is visible that the movie is written and produced by humans, so it shows human logic, behavior patterns, and story arc. Or maybe I was just anthropomorphizing the characters, projecting my understanding of what the animals must be feeling, thinking, and trying to achieve. But otherwise, the animals were animals. The main character is an animal. There is no human hero or human savior; there is no human at all.
Flow, in my opinion, is an excellent attempt at telling the multispecies stories of our reality. Humans live in parallel with other species. The cats and dogs have their own lives, adventures, and agendas. Trees and plants have their own. Humans are parts of those lives and stories. But humans are not the main characters, not the heroes, just some supporting, antagonistic, or non-player characters in the lives of nonhumans. However, humans tend to value human stories most, or even just the stories of our individual stories. We might not even think that other species are trying to make it in the world. This perspective of seeing humans as the only or the main characters is anthropocentric. Anthropocentrism views humans as more valuable, more important, and more special creatures and values humans above all else in nature (we will look deeper into anthropocentrism and its alternatives in the following editions of Multispecies Digest).
I see Flow as a prompt for each of us to reflect on multispecies realities around us. Who else is living in my neighborhood? What do their lives look like? Where are they living, heading, eating, playing? When and how do our paths cross? How do my decisions impact them? Do I care enough to notice? Do I care enough to get to know them, even a little? We could all pay more attention to the nonhuman stories and lives in our daily lives.
Human legacy on Earth will be sad yet long-lasting.
There are no humans in the movie, no human characters or words. There are just visible remains of human activity, like empty buildings, boats, tools, and rubbish. That made me wonder how the planet would look if humans disappeared. What legacy are we leaving? The images I saw on the screen and in my mind made me sad. Human creations are not made to disintegrate in a reasonable time. They are not made to return to nature, but rather to withstand time and continue showcasing the creator’s legacy for decades and centuries. Some materials will take thousands of years to rejoin natural systems and flows. Our buildings will stand for hundreds of years. The plastics will lie on the ground and float in the water for thousands of years. The fast fashion clothes, made of oil-based plastic materials, will lie in decaying stores, warehouses, closets, and landfills for centuries. Cars, roads, buildings, phones, cups, diapers, clothes, designer bags…. Utterly useless to the natural world. Except maybe for some plastic-eating microorganisms and insects.
Flow urged me to think about what the planet would look like for plants, animals, and nature if humans really died out. What is the legacy that we are leaving? And I felt very sad realizing that we would leave piles of rubbish, plastic wrappers, forever chemicals, and just a bunch of useless crap. Is that the legacy that we want? What if we applied the Swedish death cleaning (a concept that urges people to set their affairs in order before passing on) to post-human futures? What would we change in our actions, possessions, and business models if we knew that humanity will end, leaving a pile of clutter for the natural world to sort through? Or does it matter? Does only human life and activity matter?
Humans can build multispecies compassion, but supportive materials are needed.
This movie showed me, once again, that humans can build empathy, sympathy, and compassion for nonhuman characters. I was happy to see how humans in the audience gasped when a nonhuman character was in danger, uttered ‘how stupid’ when a character did something they interpreted as a misstep, and laughed at a lemur who provided much-needed comic relief in tense or sad moments. As I shared impressions with my friends after the screening, it was apparent that the movie and the characters left an impression on them. One of my friends said that Flow arose empathy towards the character from the beginning to the end. Another described it as touching. It was evident that Flow evoked feelings, compassion, reflection, and maybe even empathy.
Merriam-Webster dictionary defines empathy as “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another.” I do not like the concept of empathy because I am not sure a person can truly understand the feelings, thoughts, and experiences of human or nonhuman others without having experienced something similar (but that’s a story for another day). I do believe that many humans are capable of relating to others. Humans can also understand that other beings can value their lives and experiences and have their reason and logic. It is easier for humans to relate to those who are similar to them. And it is easier to relate when the stories, perspectives, and experiences of others are shown, visible, and tangible.
Flow one again reminded me that humans can practice compassion for nonhuman others and train their ability to accept, value, and reflect upon the experiences and perspectives of natural beings. However, we need help and tools for building and practicing such sensitivity. A study that I am currently conducting indicates that (a) multispecies framing of assignments and design challenges and (b) the use of nonhuman personas to make the perspective of trees, bees, rabbits, and rivers more tangible increase ability of humans to see and value such perspectives and to see the world as a space of multispecies co-habitation. We need representation of natural beings and reframing of decision-making processes to coax us to think beyond humans. We need exposure to nonhuman and multispecies perspectives before we can even ask, “Is the multispecies perspective relevant here?” Flow could be seen as a small step towards such recognition
Closing remarks
Flow left a tangible impression on me. The multispecies themes in the movie were palpable. I’m not sure that the director and others on the team are aware of this movie's potential to evoke conversations about topics in multispecies co-existence and human-nature relationships. I would be curious to find out more about that.
If you have not seen Flow, I highly recommend it.
Analyzing Flow was a fun and thought-provoking exercise for me as a researcher and now the author of the Multispecies Digest. I enjoyed sharing my interpretations of the themes in this first post, and I will continue doing so in the upcoming bi-weekly breakdowns.
If you are interested to know more:
Video of a panel discussion “The Cinema of Multispecies Encounters” with Peter Bloom, Kim Knowles and Carrie Noland.
Video lecture “Storytelling for Multispecies Justice and Care” by Donna J. Haraway.
Video of a presentation “Multispecies Storytelling” by Brett Mills and Claire Parkinson
Book chapter “Multispecies Stories from the Margins” by Outi Rantala and Emily Höckert (open-access).
Book “Cinema of/for the Anthropocene: Affect, Ecology, and More-Than-Human Kinship” edited by Katarzyna Paszkiewicz and Andrea Ruthven.
Multispecies digest
Lighthearted yet research-informed analysis of situations, projects, and life through the multispecies lens. Paired with bi-weekly video lectures on multispecies and more-than-human design, decision-making, and business for those who want to know more.