Continuing the countdown of my favorite 2021 movies…

Best Films of 2021
#9 – Flee

Nominated for an historic trifecta of Oscars — Animated Film, Foreign Film, and Documentary — director Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s Flee is unlike anything I’ve seen before.

The film chronicles the troubled childhood of Amin (an alias), who fled both Afghanistan and Russia to escape a round robin of authoritarian regimes. Amin is telling his story for the first time, encouraged by his friend of 20+ years.

Amin remains concerned about the ramifications of his story, and he’s a deeply private man, so Rasmussen granted him anonymity by telling the story through animation. The result is photo-realistic animation of Amin speaking to the camera and living his present-day life, but also animated recreations of episodes from his childhood.

Acted-out recreations are generally a crass way to convey information in a documentary, but rendered in animation they become as ethereal and beautiful as memories.

Even more effective are the moments where Amin recalls a specific trauma and the animation style becomes more abstract and surreal, putting us inside his swirling emotions.

Flee is a triumph of form, but it is also a powerful piece of storytelling. Amin had the added burden of being a young gay man in a culture that didn’t acknowledge homosexuality as legitimate, and we see him coming to terms with those emotions even as he fights to stay alive.

Because of his life of displacement and distrust, Amin has trouble settling down, causing a strain on the relationship with his Danish fiancé. Flee starts as a chronicle of childhood trauma, but it is ultimately the story of a man who has never stopped running finally learning the meaning of home.