Flee

Very powerful portrait of a life with so many obstacles that most of us can't even imagine. A great story but the documentary also does a great work mixing animation with real images on a very clever way and in a better way than I've seen before in similar docs. Great score also.

My only complaint is that I would love to have seen more 20 minutes of it and to go a bit further, for example, on his current relationship with his family. I really wanted to see how it happened when he met her mum again...

Chronicling the harrowing journey of an Afghan immigrant and the unfathomable adversity he & his family had to navigate through to find a new home, Flee lends a powerful, heart-rending & thought-provoking perspective to the refugee experience through the first-hand account of its protagonist, and makes for a strongly moving documentary that's rendered on screen with care & consideration.

Written & directed by Jonas Poher Rasmussen, the film employs animation to narrate the life story of its protagonist who's been harbouring a secret he finally feels ready to reveal for the first time. The use of animation not only allows the director to sketch a stimulating portrait of the narrator's dark & traumatic past but also helps protect his real-world identity by keeping him & his family anonymous.

Though a work of rich, evocative animation for the most part, the film does make use of live-action archival footages sometimes to help ground our storyteller's testimony in reality. Add to that, the emotional wallop it provides only contributes to the film's overall bracing impact. But it's not all disturbing & distressing, for there lies his own coming-of-age story & his road to self-discovery which is beautifully illustrated.

Overall, Flee is an achingly human & emotionally stirring slice of life that's crafted with heart, told with compassion and has an apt understanding of its thematic content. Thoughtful in its approach and empathetic in its presentation, this Danish memoir is a gripping blend of artful animation & documentary realism, and definitely ranks amongst the most intimate, affecting, personal & profound films of 2021. Thoroughly recommended.

The partially animated documentary-story of a man who secretly escaped Afghanistan as a child.

I enjoyed this film more than I thought it would, and I am so happy to find that animation can succeed in this form of storytelling. Though the animation can be quite limited at times, it is more than adept and able to communicate the raw emotion behind many of the stories, maybe even more so than it's real-life counterparts could.

It is a film almost everyone should watch - just to see life through another person's eyes.

Denmark's official submission to 2022's Oscars is an amazing heartbreaking animated documentary. Its real story is extraordinary, sad, powerful and so moving. It's written brilliantly, with many deep lines. The animation is beautiful and original. I hope this film will get Oscar nominations for Best International Feature Film, Best Animation and Best Documentary.

Before I watched this movie, I thought I was going to hate it. Why is that ? Because this movie looked like a movie that was made just to get awards. Isn't it a prize-winning subject ? A gay muslim Afghan men, war, flee, bad situations, family, drama. But after watching the movie, I saw that it wasn't like that. I was particularly impressed by the fact that it was a true story, and I understood and appreciated that it was told via animation. It was a very different and good experience. Reminds me of the movie "Persepolis". I like it.