A true story and a great movie! Flee, Grand Prix at the Annecy festival, nominated in three categories at the Oscars and awarded at Sundance, is an animated documentary like you rarely see! Director Jonas Poher Rasmussen delves into the memories of Amin, a homosexual Afghan refugee, to tell a painful but necessary epic where the young man lays bare. We think of Waltz with Bashir in front of the intensity of the emotions that this confession provokes.
“The idea of the animation came naturally, explains the director to 20 minutes. Being a radio documentary regular, I used the same method to help Amin open up over a period of years. Lying down with his eyes closed to tell his story helped him free himself from his reluctance to speak. The spectator in apnea follows the young boy who arrives alone at 16 in Denmark. We discover her childhood during the war, a nightmarish stay in Moscow, to end on her adult development with her Danish husband.
Sharing and anonymity
“Amin was relieved by the idea that animation allowed him to share vswhat he lived while remaining anonymous. It was essential for him to be able to speak without exposing himself to the public. », insists Jonas Poher Rasmussen. The director met Amin when they were both teenagers, which probably partly explains the degree of intimacy that is communicated through superb shots. Archival images bring a welcome contextualization to the whole.
“I hope I have succeeded in conveying the urgency experienced by this boy who is forced to flee and hide his past as well as his sexual orientation, specifies the filmmaker. I also hope to have succeeded in revealing him at peace at the end of a film that we both wanted to be bursting with hope. Although he has had terrible experiences, Amin is never shown as a victim. His exemplary resilience has something galvanizing. ” He told me that Flee had done him good, which is the best compliment I could receive, ”says the director.
This powerful work demonstrates that animation can take many forms, even if it means being completely forgotten, so strong is the subject evoked. Without having known the ordeals suffered by Amin, we feel such empathy for this boy that we believe we have shared them in the depths of our hearts during a screening.