*This piece is part of our Critics In Conversation series, where two writers offer different perspectives on the same film. Read Nancy Liu’s review here, and Wesley Stenzel’s review here.*
Art almost always reflects real life to a certain extent, but very rarely does a single life’s particularities hold such emotional profundity on its own that no further dramatization is needed. Flee by director Jonas Poher Rasmussen is a perfect synthesis of impactful art and the heart of what good journalism is supposed to cut to. Like colored pages out of a newspaper, Flee manages to portray a painfully visceral slice of humanity.
I can’t help but compare this film to the graphic novel Maus by Art Spiegleman––or better yet, I can’t help but compare the experiences I had when unpacking them. Both are stories we’ve read about before, in newspapers, in text books, on posters. Yet a colorless comic strip or a playfully animated film is what manages to bring tears to my eyes. Partly because this time Rasmussen has forced me into considering myself, as a big brother, in his story; what if my little brother saw me being packed into the back of a truck and shipped to war? What if I had to pay to traffic my sister in a shipping crate? All the questions that a broadcast never compelled me to ask myself, up on the screen. However, the main reason that these unique formats resonate so deeply is because, at first glance, we’ve been completely separated from real life; it’s no longer a story about an actual war, it’s a comic about Art’s grandpa, or a cartoon about Amin and this makes us vulnerable.
Flee and Maus are also fundamentally similar in the sense that they’re both about the making of themselves. Flee welcomes us into the first time Amin tells his story of leaving Afghanistan during the war. He’s forced to leave his home, then his family and then, finally, his own identity; an experience that is hardly unique to just him. Following his struggle and little shimmers of happiness (in the form of a gold necklace and Jean-Claude Van Damme) gives the audience a representation of the true repercussions of war, and that being a refugee isn’t going from one place to another and starting over. In Amin’s case, it was a long time and a tireless struggle towards finally settling down.
Besides protecting Amin’s real-life identity, the use of animation excels in manipulating a scene to hold the appropriately-heavy contextual depth. In the very first scene, before the title rolls, we are instantly aware of the fact that Amin has not chiseled away at these memories in almost a lifetime. He’s asked for his idea of what home is, but as he tries to piece together an answer, the people and buildings on-screen remain in ambiguity: faces smudged away, almost intentionally. His answer is “somewhere you feel safe,” but as we come to find out, his answer is based more on what he’s wanted, opposed to what he’s had. The animation throughout the film becomes an element as vital as the narration itself.
Once Amin finds the idea of home he once had as a child and we finally get that clear image of his past, the scratchy drawings burst into color as we chase Amin down in a 1984 Afghanistan, wearing his sister’s dress, smiling ear-to-ear and blasting A-Ha in his headphones; a life Amin would soon be forced to abandon along with his youthful innocence. But, for at least that moment of childish glee, we see an expressive animation that radiates the vibrant and high-spirited life he once had.
Towards the end of the film, Amin says “You grow up too fast. When you flee as a child, it takes time to learn to trust people,” and that’s the journey Amin takes us on; the journey of a boy forced out of his childhood, forced to understand why his family must stay in Russia despite being treated so badly,forced to protect themselves at whatever cost necessary.
It’s not until Amin leaves Russia and goes to a gay club in Denmark that he is allowed to lower his guard. After years of sneaking in the streets anytime he left his home, he is finally welcomed to celebrate himself and his deepest insecurities; and the sounds of sentimental strings soon dissipate into a dancy electro-disco.
Throughout the film the audience is reminded that this is indeed a real life story, showing footage that puts us in a place or time. It’s almost never a particularly pleasant image: usually scenes of war, government meetings or bustling-busy cities. But the very last representation of the real world is, without a doubt, the most hopeful: a simple shot of a garden at a home Amin and his longtime boyfriend have just agreed to buy. At first the image is animated, then shifts to reality right after they walk off-screen. It’s at this moment that we feel like Amin has finally lowered his defenses, ready to rebuild his home.
Rasmussen shows us that journalism can be as beautiful as it is useful to amplify voices. Never once is the story demeaned by being a cartoon, in fact, the opposite is true. It expunges us of all reference to reality, forcing us to see Amin’s experience for the first time besides being the product of a widely covered war. Visually, there is a poetic bluntness to be found in Flee that batters the emotions until holistic empathy is achieved; but above all else it is proof of the importance of listening to someone’s story.