Summary Statement: This moving Danish film blurs the lines between documentary and animated movie. It’s already made history with a hat trick of Oscar nominations. Here’s why it deserves to win:
Flee is unlike any film that’s come before it. For one, it’s earned Oscar nominations in three very different feature film categories: Best Documentary Feature, Best Animated Feature, and Best International Feature, making it the first to be nominated in all of these. Then, there’s the movie itself, which tenderly unravels the true story of director Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s childhood friend, Amin Bawani, (a pseudonym used to protect his identity), who fled Afghanistan when he was a teenager and arrived in Denmark alone.
Poher Rasmussen draws on recorded interviews with Amin to tell his story of displacement, survival, and acceptance — as Amin grows into his identity and comes out as gay to his family, making Flee a part of the groundbreaking queer representation at the Academy Awards. Moreover, the story is told in a vivid, experimental style, creating an entirely new type of documentary that utilizes artful animation to expand upon a story that is as heartbreaking as it is powerful and uplifting.
Flee is billed as a “docudrama,” but it’s more than that: a deeply personal confession, a tender coming-of-age story, an unflinching examination of the refugee crisis and Afghanistan’s history. The lines are blurred between film and the real world, as Amin’s name and appearance has been altered in the animation, the story he tells is very real, full of harrowing detail. It’s currently available to watch as one of the best documentaries on Hulu.
There’s no doubting Encanto has been the animated blockbuster of the year, but its success shouldn’t be allowed to fully eclipse Flee’s. Nor should Questlove’s Summer of Soul block it out of the Best Documentaries of 2021 category. Some argue that Flee has a chance to pull off the win, while others speculate that, like Honeyland (nominated in 2020 for Best Documentary and International Film), Flee is likely to miss out on a win. This may actually be because of its triple-nominee status, which threatens to spread its support thin across three categories. This would be a shame, as it is certainly one of the best films of the year and deserves to be recognized as such. Here’s why Flee deserves to win least one of its Oscar categories.
A Harrowing Survival Story
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Flee is first and foremost a true story, one that is increasingly relevant after recent events in Afghanistan and the current war in Ukraine compound an already dire refugee crisis. During the Cold War, Afghanistan became a playground for Soviet and American meddling, and the political instability left behind would later give rise to al-Qaeda and the Taliban. This tumultuous history is the backdrop of Amin’s otherwise happy childhood in Kabul. As tensions rise between the US-backed mujahideen and the Soviet-backed communist government, a dangerous civil war breaks out. Amin’s father is ‘disappeared’ by Afghan authorities, and his brother narrowly escapes a military draft. Amin’s family soon flees to Russia, where they live in fear of the police and plan their escape.
In the hands of other documentary filmmakers, this story might become trauma-porn. Poher Rasmussen takes tremendous care in telling Flee’s true story in Amin’s voice, using animation to bring his words to life. This personal approach to documentary makes it one of the year’s best, and a deserving Oscar winner.
The family’s various attempts to seek asylum in Western Europe are met with a variety of trials, each more crushing than the last. Poher Rasmussen uses Amin’s testimony to inject these scenes, which might sound like familiar news headlines, with a dose of humanity. In one scene, Amin and a stranded boat of Afghan refugees find themselves before a massive cruise ship in the Baltic Sea, only to be detained and deported back to Russia, their near-death rollercoaster of a journey leading right back to where they started. This being said, Flee’s subject is adamant that his experience as a refugee should not define his entire identity, nor anyone’s, telling NPR: “There are human beings behind this concept, and they are not much different than everyone else.”
Coming of Age
At the same time, Flee isn’t just a story of Amin’s painful journey from Afghanistan to Denmark: it’s the story of his journey from boyhood to adulthood. Amin always knew he was different — we are introduced to him running through the streets of Kabul as a boy in his sister’s dress — but it isn’t until he finally arrives in Denmark that he fully comes to terms with his sexuality. His personal struggles growing up in Afghanistan, where the word “gay” didn’t even exist, might be familiar to other LGBTQ individuals who have struggled to pinpoint why they feel so different.
Later in the film, Amin asks his social worker at the asylum center if there’s medication that will make him straight. Amin has spent most of his childhood fleeing violence—but when he arrives safely in Denmark, he’s not done running yet. It’s a heartbreaking moment, thankfully juxtaposed with one of the film’s most heartwarming ones: when Amin finally comes out to his family, his older brother drives him to a gay bar and hands him a fistful of cash.
The movie gives this storyline nearly as much importance as the story of Amin’s escape from Russia itself — this allows us to recognize that his difficult experiences as a refugee are not defining aspects of his identity but, as he said, experiences that could happen to anyone. In the present day, where Amin is being interviewed, he and his boyfriend Kaspar are searching for a home. This process is both concrete and symbolic for Amin, who has spent the better part of his life searching for a physical home, safety, and acceptance. Bawani’s story takes shape in Rasmussen’s hands as a story of growth and finding peace, making Flee one of the most satisfying films in the categories it’s competing for.
Animating Life
Neon
Innovative, artistic animation techniques set Flee apart from the rest of the Animated Feature Film Oscar nominees. Poher Rasmussen has a background primarily in radio documentary, so he was new to the process of animation. Nonetheless, the choice to animate his recorded interview with Amin was a natural one which allowed his subject to feel more comfortable telling his story. Rasmussen told Screendaily: “Having this way of telling the story was what made him feel safe enough to open up.”
There is an intimate, authentic quality from the beginning of Flee that the animation lends to the recorded interview. We can hear the genuine care in Rasmussen’s voice as he gently urges Amin into telling his story, asking him to relax and close his eyes. As much as the animation is a window into Amin’s memory, it’s also a demonstration of his and Rasmussen’s friendship, which plays out naturally when the “camera” is off. The animation allows us to see their relationship from the outside, watching Amin confide in Jonas while washing the dishes or scrolling through his email.
The warm colors of the present/interview scenes contrast with the bright colors of Amin’s childhood in Kabul, the grim grays of Russia, and the muted charcoal sketches of the most tragic, haunting events that he describes — the animation becoming increasingly abstract to evoke Amin’s own feelings of trauma and displacement. While a low budget may have made the film’s animation significantly choppier than it might have been with more resources, this lends an artistic authenticity to the story that might otherwise be absent.
Memory and History Intersect
Flee has an organic feel to it, often mimicking the fragmentary, emotional nature of memory. Throughout the film, snippets of archival footage and news coverage are intercut with the animated depiction of Amin’s interview with Rasmussen. These remind us that we’re not watching a fiction, but a true story grounded in a real world crisis. They also allow those of us who remember this news to refilter it through a human lens, doing away with the clinical language of ‘casualties’ and far-off politics. This isn’t to say that it’s easy to forget the reality of the story we’re watching anyway — Flee’s emotional tensions are palpable in every scene, audible in Amin’s voice as he narrates the painful events that drove his family from Afghanistan.
In one of the film’s most powerful shots (and in a nod perhaps to its influence from Ari Folman’s Waltz With Bashir), an animated frame of the backyard behind Amin and Kaspar’s house fades into a live action shot of the same greenery. It’s as if the cartoon veil of Amin’s story has dissolved into a livable reality, a peace he only could have dreamed of. Even if Flee comes up dry this Oscar Sunday, moments like this makes it one of the year’s most deserving winners.
