Muristek
Flee review – an Afghan refugee confronts his past in masterly animated documentary
A long, hard journey from Kabul to Copenhagen is relived in Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s ultimately uplifting film – a deserving awards contender
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.
Continue reading...