The Danish French film-maker Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s animated documentary, in which a middle-aged academic living in Denmark relives his flight from Afghanistan as a boy, is shaping up as a major awards contender. Within the past fortnight, it has been nominated for best animated feature and best documentary at both the Baftas and Oscars, with an additional Academy Award nod for best international feature. It’s easy to see why the film has touched a nerve. Addressing difficult subject matter in a manner that is at once emotionally engaging and stylistically adventurous, Flee follows in the footsteps of Ari Folman’s 2008 animated awards-winner Waltz With Bashir, about his experiences and memories of the 1982 Lebanon war, proving once again that genuinely “true life” storytelling requires as much artistry and invention as any drama.
Drawing on his background in radio documentaries, Rasmussen conducted a lengthy series of intimate interviews with the pseudonymously renamed “Amin Nawabi” whom he had known since middle school, but who had kept his past to himself. I’ll leave it to the film to explain why Amin’s story remained untold for so long; suffice to say that there is a palpable air of discovery as Rasmussen’s subject gradually reveals himself, finally giving voice to traumas that had long been hidden.
Key to Amin’s openness is the animated format that allows him to speak about his life without sacrificing his anonymity. His memories are vivid, packed with the kind of details that transfer beautifully to the screen: flying kites and listening to music on headphones on the streets of Kabul; gazing with dawning longing at posters of Jean-Claude Van Damme; witnessing his father’s stoical courage when the mujahideen come calling. These scenes are rendered in sharp, unfussy 2D animation that at times reminded me of the boldly accessible images of the Belgian cartoonist Hergé or the rapturous melancholia of the UK-based Dutch animator Michaël Dudok de Wit (The Red Turtle).
Such clarity gives way to something altogether more impressionistic and abstract as Amin recalls the horrors endured as he and his family fled Afghanistan for Moscow and beyond. While news stories detailing the unspeakable ordeals faced by desperate refugees have become appallingly commonplace, Amin’s account of human trafficking is dramatically amplified by the nightmarish images conjured up by Copenhagen-based Sun Creature Studio. Whether it’s phantasmagorical visions of drowning as an overcrowded boat hits a storm or the claustrophobia of being trapped in a sealed cargo container, Flee had my palms sweating with anxiety during its most harrowing sequences.
Yet what emerges from this remarkable story is not a tale of victimhood but, rather, a coming-of-age narrative that covers a lifetime. Amin is physically displaced by the events of his early life, and his sense of identity has been similarly fractured. In the film’s opening movement we learn that Amin (who is in his mid-30s) is struggling to accept the prospect of an idyllic life in a rural home with his long-term partner, Kasper. Does the key to unlocking the future lie in confronting the ghosts of the past? That is certainly how it appears, as Flee traces an arc from secrecy to openness that seems to signal a great unburdening. No wonder Rasmussen gives his subject an “original screenplay” credit – this is a triumph-of-the-human-spirit story as dramatic as the most finely wrought melodrama, with flashes of vintage newsreels reminding us that it is all “real”.
Just as Max Richter’s haunting score proved such a powerful part of Waltz With Bashir, so the Swedish composer Uno Helmersson provides a lyrical accompaniment to Amin’s story, his spine-tingling cues (featuring the violinist Mari Samuelsen) rubbing shoulders with pop tracks that play a transformative role. I’d never been a fan of Norwegian chart-toppers A-ha before, but having seen Flee I now cannot get their anthemic Take on Me (the video for which famously blended live-action with animation) out of my head.
In UK cinemas, Flee (on which Riz Ahmed gets an executive producer credit) is being released in subtitled and dubbed versions. I have seen the former and would strongly recommend it, although anything that widens the film’s mainstream appeal is to be applauded.