This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Sundance Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.
Great stories transcend any genre or format. Flee is a Danish documentary that masterfully uses animation to tell an emotional whirlwind of a story that is sure to keep viewers on the edge of their seats before absolutely breaking their hearts. For a relatively short film, clocking in at under 90 minutes, it definitely packs a wallop. Using hand-drawn animation in inventive ways as it was not only beautiful to look at bust also aided the film narratively to enhance the storytelling and even protect some aspects of the story and its subject while perfectly framing that emotion in an extremely moving way. The film serves as the story of an Afghan refugee to Denmark named Amin, a gay man who escaped persecution in his native country as a boy during Afghanistan’s 1978 Civil War. Suffice it to say that his journey was not an easy one and seemed almost to unbelievable to be real, taking him through the 1980s from Afghanistan to Russia to Sweden to Denmark and separated from his family as a result of the war and human trafficking, but over the course of the film, it became abundantly clear how much of a toll it took on him which was the truly heartbreaking part.
In the end, Flee rests on Amin’s shoulders and rightfully so as he was a phenomenal storyteller while the sheer vulnerability on display offer a unique perspective as the combination of animation and archival footage adds a further dimension to his story. This included his childhood, sexual awakening, the circumstances behind his family’s fleeing of Afghanistan, and his personal journey to Denmark which meant sacrificing his identity in order to survive. Now an adult and wanting to start a life for himself and his husband, he also talks about how that discomfort and anxiety are still there as his uncertain immigration status and his childhood demons remain. In the end, one can’t help but feel for Amin while watching and want him to be happy as he has been through a lot.
Animation or not, Flee is a powerful story, leaving lasting images that will be hard to forget.
still courtesy of Sundance
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The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.
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