*This piece is part of our Critics In Conversation series, where two writers offer different perspectives on the same film. Read Wesley Stenzel’s review here, and Omar Reyes’ review here.*
When does a war end? When the last soldier breathes their last breath? When the troops pull out and a peace treaty signed? Is it still a war if it’s fought only in the memory of the last survivor, in the genes passed down through generations until time breeds it out of our DNA?
In Flee, Jonas Poher Rasmussen asks his friend, “What does ‘home’ mean to you?” The film opens on charcoal strokes of parent and child, hand in hand, running. Blocks of gray and black rise and fall in the background, shaping buildings and collapsing ruins. Families flee the carnage, shuddering frame by shuddering frame.
“It’s someplace safe,” Amin responds.
Flee is a true story, brought to life through the comic book brushwork of animation, following an Afghan refugee as he recounts his perilous journey to safety in Denmark. Amin is a pseudonym; the names of characters and places have been changed to protect the identities of the cast. Flee is a confession and a resolution. The use of animation is both another layer of protection for Amin to allow him to tell his story, and a mode that creates a distance from the events and an immersion in the truth. There’s something about the way the faces blur, lines swirling the way they do in nightmares, that provides a catharsis. It paints a striking parallel to British director Michael Winterbottom’s 2002 docudrama In This World that follows two young Afghan refugees as they embark on their own search for safety and encounter many of the same obstacles as Amin’s family. Like Amin, the main characters in In This World are played by real Afghan refugees who aren’t professional actors, and much of the dialogue is improvised. Where In This World works by portraying the bitter brutality of the refugee’s flight in live action, from their failed attempts at escape to being smuggled out in suffocating cargo containers, Flee takes advantage of animation to realize the same vicious emotions through reliving Amin’s memory. Flee is guided by interviews between Rasmussen and Amin, where Amin narrates his past in answer to Rasmussen’s questions. They’re old friends from school who met after Amin entered Denmark as a refugee. Their bond is comfortable and adds an intimacy to the film, as Amin lets Rasmussen—and by extension, us—into the most private spaces of his life.
Amin’s story starts on the streets of Afghanistan. He reminisces about his gray-haired mom and mythical pilot father, his storyteller sister and playful brother. This tranquil childhood comes to an abrupt end when the Soviets invade Kabul; Amin’s father is arrested, his brother barely escapes being conscripted, and his family is forced to flee their home. Then follows Amin’s harrowing odyssey, where geopolitical tensions become eclipsed by his struggle to survive. Russia is the only country that will grant his family a travel visa—once it expires, they’re forced to hide. The burden of saving enough money to have the family smuggled out is placed on Amin’s eldest brother, who lives in Sweden, and they must rely on human traffickers to get them out of Russia. The only hope we can grasp onto as we witness the grim reality of refugee life is the knowledge that Amin makes it safely to Denmark, where he is preparing to marry his fiance and complete his postdoc.
Rasmussen brings us back and forth between the present and the past, the present coming in brief interludes as an island of relative serenity in the turbulence of Amin’s history. At the same time, Amin reveals how the trauma of fleeing, of constantly being on alert while hiding his family and sexuality, continues to haunt him. When Rasmussen asks him to read from his journal about what happened after he arrived in Denmark, Amin becomes self conscious: “It’ll be hard. I’m not that good at reading Dari anymore.” And is there anything quite as gutting as realizing that you’re losing your childhood, your mother tongue, your last connection to the motherland? Children of war grow up too quickly, Amin says later. He has trouble trusting people and always puts his education before his relationships. It’s the burden, he explains, of knowing how much his siblings sacrificed to give him this life.
Amin’s story is a coming out––not of his sexuality, but his life in its entirety. Though he had realized he was gay at a young age, his sexuality becomes as much a refuge as it is a point of contention. He develops a crush on an older boy in the back of a human trafficker’s truck, a passing encounter that is one of the most impactful moments of his life, and he chafes under the looming threat of his brother asking when he’ll get a girlfriend. When he impulsively comes out, Rasmussen spends some time making us worry about how his siblings will react until his oldest brother takes him on a drive that ends at a gay bar. This is one of the most colorful scenes of the film, neon lights cutting through the dark night, a spark of joy and relief that preludes his brighter future in Denmark.
Flee tells the parts of Amin’s story he keeps carefully guarded, some of which he hadn’t even told his fiance, because the truth of it would cost him his asylum in Denmark. Created by Rasmussen in conversation with Amin’s real-life counterpart and animated by teams in Denmark and France, Flee is a riveting, intimate account of life as a refugee and reflection on the alienation of different identities. Through Flee, we have the honor of accompanying Rasmussen into Amin’s home—a warm, safe place with an orange cat climbing onto the dinner table and a patch of berries growing in the backyard.