An immense part of Flow’s success lies in its all-encompassing score. Zilbalodis first developed it as electronic looping “sketches,” and composer Rihards Zaļupe later transformed it into moments of transcendental and, at times, monolithic orchestration. 

“Gints shared with me over seven hours of music which is absolutely crazy,” Zaļupe says with a laugh from his home studio in Riga, Latvia. “We chose the best parts and they were more sketches of percussive, minimalistic, Steve Reich [inspired] pieces of music. Then I came in to expand them with more production and an orchestra.”

Save for the sounds of nature and a few meows, barks, squawks, and grunts, Flow has no dialogue. From day one, Zaļupe knew the music needed to anchor the emotional core of the story. It needed to be an omniscient character. Using a “microscopic touch,” Zaļupe dissected the original sketches to find motifs for each character and to establish Flow’s overall atmosphere.

“I felt that this movie needed to have a meditative or subconscious feel, so I did that with long sustained chords,” he says. “There are also chase scenes with fast music, so it was a big task to put it all together.”

Composer Rihards Zaļupe

The element of water plays a major role in Flow’s narrative, and it also inspired Zaļupe’s score. He views the musical pieces like waves—rising and falling, shifting in tone as the story unfolds. At the beginning of the film, the water is dirty, and Cat, our main protagonist, is terrified of it. The music mirrors this, especially during the flood scene, using minor-key strings, arpeggiated synths, low percussion, and an overall tense feel.

“For me, the water is fear,” Zaļupe says. “After the big flood, when Cat jumps into the boat, we can’t see the fish, but eventually, he begins to trust it and overcomes the fear when he starts to fish.”

Zaļupe has been a percussionist with the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra for 15 years, giving him an extensive classical music background. This expertise allowed him to incorporate technical references to masterful symphonies from composers like Dmitri Shostakovich into Flow’s score. One example is Zaļupe’s use of tutti (a term used in classical music meaning ‘all together’) string moments to highlight Cat’s character development.

“So when he jumps freely in the water to fish, the theme is played in loud tutti strings to show that Cat is safe and the water is now a healing element,” Zaļupe says.

Given Flow‘s relatively modest budget compared to Hollywood productions, Zaļupe had to get creative with the score. He taped paper to a marimba for a specific hiss, pitch-shifted children’s glockenspiels, and layered dozens of takes with his 40-piece orchestra, giving Flow‘s score a gargantuan texture.

“In Latvia, my day-to-day life is dealing with small budgets and to be honest, the struggle to find money to write for a real orchestra is not uncommon,” Zaļupe says. “So I have to get creative in a small country because there is no other option. I would love to have different orchestras for different themes and to buy big expensive instruments, but I found a way and that is part of Latvian culture.”

The big question is whether or not Flow will win an award at this year’s Oscars, and even though Zaļupe, Zilbalodis, and the Flow team will be attending, the Latvian composer says it feels like they have already won—regardless of an award or not. 

“If you drive in Riga, there are posters of Cat everywhere and we now have a statue next to the Freedom Monument,” Zaļupe says. “People love this film and it’s an important moment for Latvia and the world to see what our country can do.”