For a festival traditionally not keen on animation, Jonas Poher Rasmussen's “Flee” has surprisingly garnered remarkable accolades. The Danish-French-Swedish-Norwegian production marked the first acquisition of Sundance (sold to Neon for seven figures!), and eventually closed out as the winner of this year's World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary. At the same time, however, maybe this is to be expected. Out of ten entries, three this year in the World Cinema: Documentary section concerned the plight of refugees. “Flee” truly stands out here, as it tells a story beyond refugee status.
“Flee” is screening at Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema
“Flee” recounts the years-long journey of an anonymous gay Afghan refugee (hereon referred to as Amin Nawabi). Nawabi seems to have it all. He is an accomplished academic with a postdoc waiting for him at Princeton University; his significant other is madly in love with him; and now, he just needs to make the choice between two equally tempting options. Nawabi, however, is riddled with distrust. In a series of visits to the therapist, Nawabi unravels his journey — fraught with fear, love, and the continual pangs of separation — from Kabul to Copenhagen.
The film opens a Pandora's box of suppressed trauma, uncovering wounds smothered by lies for the sake of self-preservation. The somber contemplation of Nawabi's ability to trust does throw the documentary itself into question. Is Nawabi's tale true? Were any details falsified? How can we trust Nawabi now if we could not have before? But these are all conservative concerns. “Flee” is less about the exploration of truth than it is about persistence. It is a tale not of bravery or even glorified courage, but about acceptance.
This search for acceptance sets Rasmussen's interpretation of Nawabi's take apart from the rest. Nawabi here is not just a refugee, seeking to survive on the bare minimum; rather, he is a fully-fleshed out human, burdened with a set of social anxieties like anyone else. The documentary's exploration of Nawabi's sexuality is particularly illuminating. Nawabi's conflicting values pit his own upbringing against his own sexual inclinations, pointing to an internal subject just as important as his external circumstance. Nawabi's own self-reflections give the documentary a more human investigation into his chaotic debut into puberty — and in so doing, a more personalized picture of his character.
The only regrettable aspect to this animated documentary is that – well – animation is clearly secondary to the film. While Rasmussen experiments with traditional animation and charcoal sketches to convey more distant memories, the digital character animation — which makes up the majority of the movie — has a markedly low frame-rate. Unlike others within the genre like “Waltz with Bashir” (Ari Folman, 2008) and “Tower” (Keith Maitland, 2016), it is almost painful to see Nawabi's character move. Each tweak of the limb feels exudes laborious effort; the blatant avoidance of rotoscoping stunts the artists' conceptualization of the human body. Animation here is only for purpose, not for artistry. Illustration remains a practical mode of masking identity.
On the other hand, the deliberately bare-bones, low-budget approach avoids aestheticizing Nawabi's memories. This keeps the viewer's attention on his voice, rather than relying upon a visual aid; the story remains true to Nawabi than it does to Rasmussen. As the narrative trumps the optic, “Flee” remains more documentary than it does animation (or even “animated documentary”). And this is where “Flee” excels: all eyes and ears rest not on the film, but on Amin Nawabi.
“Flee” was produced by Cinephil and will be co-distributed by Neon and Participant. Riz Ahmed and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau Board will executive-produce and voice the English-language dub of “Flee.”
