Ani-May-Tion: Flee (Dir Jonas Poher Rasmussen, 1h30m, 2021)

To regard animation as the realm of childhood is perhaps cinema's greatest fallacy, its biggest insult to the realm of animation as a medium, and almost certainly its greatest challenge. Whilst much of this miscalculation can be squarely aimed at Walt Elias Disney, the company that bears his name, and their chief competitors, in stories of the fantastical and the other-wordly, this is to ignore a medium that bristles with works very squarely aimed at adults, or that use the medium of animation to tackle adult fears and concepts in a way that live-action cinema never could.

These range from the scatological- Tezuka's Cleopatra, (1970), Ralph Bashkie's Fritz the Cat (1972) and 1981's juvenile anthology film, Heavy Metal pushing good taste (and full-frontal nudity) to the limits-to the shocking-1972's still groundbreaking and phantasmagorical Belladonna of Sadness and last year's Mad God, the result of three decades' work from the singular Phil Tippett. Between the pornographic and the barbarous, though, come a remarkable breed of films, not just in the East, but in Europe and the United States. These range from the meditative Waking Life (2001) to the astonishingly intricate Anomalisa (2015) to the Iranian childhood memoir of Persepolis (2007).

No genre of cinema, though, has taken to animation like the documentary, with works like Oscar-nominated Waltz with Bashir (2008), Drawn From Memory (1995) and Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy? (2015) breathing life into the memoirs of an Israeli soldier, the events its director lived through in 1950s Europe, and a series of discussions between Michael Gondry and Noam Chomsky given fluid life via animation. No film, though, quite typifies the transformative ability in bringing one man's story to life like 2021's Flee, in which the journey of a young Afghan man, as a refuge, an asylum seeker, and coming to terms with his sexuality and new home become a mesmeric cross-section of the experiences of the refugee, as animation takes us back and forward in his journey to the present, and a new life in Denmark with his husband-to-be.

We begin with an introduction to Jonas and Amin (not his real name, for obvious reasons), together with Kaspar, his boyfriend; here, the undoubted need for animation comes in, as a means to protect Amin and his partner's identity, something done elsewhere to protect the identity of LGBTQ+ Chechens in the stunning documentary, Welcome to Chechnya and Waltz with Bashir. In short, from a purely utilitarian point of view, it, almost uniquely allows a degree of abstraction from its subject, whilst focusing, personally and in great, evocative detail, on his journey and past. This, together with the use of period, and a points, narratively-appropriate music-for much of the film, Amin carries a battered Walkman with pink headphones that, together with cinema, he escapes into-allows the film to evoke the late 80s and early 90s effortlessly 

It also, importantly, allows the film to travel back and forth in time, as the film does within minutes of its opening, to re-create, together with archive footage, the Afghanistan, Russia, and Denmark of Amin's youth. It allows the film, especially at its darkest, or most complex, to use the actual events to speak when animation itself could not possibly encapusulate the moment, or steps outside Amin’s story to flesh in what was happening across Europe during this period. From the beautifully simplistic animation of the modern-day segments, we are taken back via swirling, comic-book-esque visuals to his childhood, as a young boy in a dress, running through the streets of Kabul.
 
It's to the film's credit that these childhood sections of the film, but for the swirling, highly emotive and at points abstract sequences, dominated by black and white outlines of figures that swirl and shift across the screen, share a coherent art style with the adult Amin's sections; at points you can feel the temptation for the animation to slip into something more elaborate, particularly in that semi-idylic childhood in the shadow of the Soviet exit from Afghanistan, where Amin, his brothers and sisters still remain close-knit. The animation, undeniably, never feels like its overwhelming the story it brings to life-from the refined, life-like animation outwards, and even at its most emotive, it only embellishes and lends weight to Amin's story.

As the Soviets withdraw, so the Taliban move in, and here the documentary, news footage and the animation blend together, as the family prepares to flee from their home, leading to an absolutely devastatingly powerful shot of their abandoned house, the debris of lives abandoned in flight. Mixed in with the larger picture of the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban is that of the more personal, as the young Amin begins to realise that he is not like other boys, and is attracted to men. That this is something that the film does with a single, remarkably tender vignette of the young boy in his bedroom, surrounded by posters of western macho action heroes and realising that his attraction to them is very different to the hero worship of his peers

It is these twin emotions, of flight from a homeland, and eventually finding identity as a gay man in a new home, that form the film's key narrative. This begins in the slowly disintegrating Soviet Union, soon to become Russia, in which Amin, his brothers and sisters and their mother-the film grimly adds a note at this point that the family's father has never been found, nor his fate known-have to survive. This soon intensifies as the sisters travel via hazardous, and at points life-threatening container aboard a ship to Sweden, the almost unbearable sense of tension-cutting to news footage of just how close they came to death. This is only highlighted further by this sequence using the sketchy animation to fully depict the desperation and fear inside the container to almost unbearable effect.

This effect returns to devastating effect once Amin and his brother and their mother attempt to make their way via boat to Northern Europe, only to be placed in detention centres and eventually sent back to an increasingly unstable Russia; the second journey, this time by Amin on his own, with another young man is as tense, the control of the people smugglers keenly aware, but much more tender, as he begins to realise his attraction to other men. and finds something of a kindred spirit with his fellow traveller. We see him arrive, alone and barely able to speak Danish-encountering a language barrier with even his translator, and only slowly begins to realise he is safe.

It is also here that the film begins to explore Amin's gay identity, something only further expanded upon when the film finally reaches Denmark. The scene in which he comes out to family, and finds not only acceptance but open support from his sisters, and especially his brother in finding himself in the gay nightclubs of Copenhagen is the emotional catharsis of his journey from Afghanistan to Denmark. It is, also, undeniably, a moment that feels as transformative as any of the hardships he has encountered along the way. The film ends, back in the present, with a sudden, and utterly justified swap to live action, Amin and Kaspar speaking off screen, as, now engaged, they prepare to move into a new home.

At the heart of this remarkable documentary, and where it is at its strongest, is in its depiction of one man's experience; at a point where Denmark's far-right coalition are barring access to their country to refugees from another world power's destabilisation of Afghanistan, it is easy to lose sight of the myriad stories, each hardship, each journey, each story that every single migrant has, of homes and friends and family left behind. Flee, via animation, archive footage, and one man's journey to find his true self in a new country, does more than just bring those myriad stories to life. Flee, like few other documentaries, feels vital, animation lending depth and pathos to a beautifully told and utterly human portrait of a remarkable figure,

Rating: Highly Recommended

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