“Flow” is a futuristic Franco-Latvian fantasy, an animated sci-fi version of Disney’s classic animal odyssey, “The Incredible Journey.”

Gints Zilbalodis’ film, an Oscar nominee as Best Animated Feature and as Best International Feature, is a dialogue-free travelogue that follows a cat through a post-apocalyptic landscape.

Setting aside, it’s a light, somewhat melodramatic adaptation of the joke that cats “don’t need us” and merely tolerate human. A coal-dust-colored cat faces perils and only survives them through the aid of a capybara, a stork, a Labrador Retriever and to a lesser degree, a ring-tailed lemur.

Humanity appears to have vanished. But buildings still stand, structures crumble and become overgrown and the cat still makes her home in a Latvian dacha, surrounded by feline statuary including two works in progress by the sculptor who used to live there — an unfinished carving on a desk and a towering Mount Pussmore monument that still has scaffolding around it.

The cat is feeding itself, but it runs afoul of a pack of dogs by stealing the fish they’ve been catching. Only the yellow Lab seems indifferent to this afront.

The dogs must be evaded when they give chase. And when they flee past the cat, a vast herd of deer are the next peril to dodge.

But that’s nothing compared to the flood that follows. The narrative has a touch of Antediluvian End Times about it as the cat sees its sylvan, verdant world buried under water. Climbing the highest landmark close to hand (paw) seems ironic — it’s the giant cat statue — and pointless.

Still, the dogs find a rowboat and float off in it, heedless of where it takes them. That passing dhow with the tattered sail that seems to be sailing itself? That’s better than drowning. And it’s not exactly sailing itself. A capybara is on board and may have an idea of what a tiller does.

The cat and the capybara re-encounter the dog, and a stork and even a vain, mirror-obsessed ring-tailed lemur as they drift through former forests and mountains, spy prehistoric whales and pass through what might have been Venice, Florence or many of the Great Cities of Europe.

The story and message are “cat video” simple — put the kitty in peril, sometimes comically learning to cope with “cooperation” and a water world where if you want to eat, you’d better be willing and able to adapt — to swim under water and fish. The animation is lovely, if perhaps a tad Pixar 2.0 in texture, color palette, complexity and “realism.”

“Flow” would be a worthy contender for Best Animated Feature most years. It might be better than a new “Wallace & Gromit” film or “Inside Out 2.” But only cat fanciers will be voting for this simple, picturesque odyssey over the smarter, warmer and wittier “The Wild Robot.”

Rating: PG, peril, thematic elements.

Credits: Directed by Gints Zilbalodis, scripted by Matiss Kaza and Gints Zilbalodis. A Janus Films release.

Running time: 1:25