Flee is a 2021 animated feature film from Denmark, directed by Jonas Poher Rasmussen.
It is, rather uniquely, an animated documentary. Amin Nawabi (a pseudonym) was born in Afghanistan around the time of the Soviet invasion and the beginning of the Soviet-Afghan war. Amin's older brother narrowly avoids conscription in the pro-Soviet government forces, and his whole family manages to get out of Kabul just before it falls to the mujahedeen. Their troubles are not over, however, as they overstay their visa in Moscow and wind up stateless. Additionally, Amin has a secret that he has kept from his family: he is gay.
Tropes:
- Art Shift: Most of the animation is done in a pretty realistic 2-D style that resembles Rotoscoping, even though it isn't. But certain moments, usually traumatic ones like Amin's memory of the day his father was arrested or when he was arrested by Estonian border police, are done in an abstract black-and-white style.
- Based on a True Story: The film opens with a title card saying that "This is a true story," but names and locations have been changed to protect identities.
- Bonding Through Shared Earbuds: Amin has a flirty moment in the strangest setting, sharing his headphones with a handsome boy and thinking "I've got a crush on him," as the two are in the back of a smuggler's van being taken to Ukraine.
- Documentary: The harrowing story of a boy, later a young man, fleeing from Afghanistan to Russia to Denmark, while also coming to terms with his homosexuality.
- Dramatic Drop: One of Amin's sisters drops the dish she's washing when he finally confesses that he's not interested in girls.
- Framing Device: The film plays out as a series of interviews that Amin gives to an old friend and documentarian (voiced by an uncredited Jonas Rasmussen).
- Hiding Behind the Language Barrier: Accidentally. Amin and his family are part of a group of migrants leaving Russia illegally, by foot. When an old lady can't keep up in the snow and cold, their Mafiya guides suggest shooting her in the head. Looking back some 25 years later, Amin says "That woman...It's good she didn't understand Russian."
- Human Traffickers: They are bad people. Amin's sisters get put into a cargo container by traffickers. Amin and his mom and brother have an even worse experience, going with traffickers who nearly murder an old lady who can't keep up, before everyone gets on a trawler that almost sinks in the Baltic. That terrifying moment leads them to seek out a more reliable and thus much more expensive trafficker, which means that Amin must go alone.
- The Illegal: Amin and his whole family, once their Russian visas expire. They, and others like them, are subject to terrifying abuses, left to the mercy of corrupt cops and human traffickers. Even after Amin makes it to safety in Denmark he has to keep his family secret for years, because in order to gain asylum he told the Danish authorities that all his family members had been killed.
- An Immigrant's Tale: Amin and his family undergo terrible suffering as they make difficult journeys to Western Europe, but they all make it in the end, and Amin settles down with a husband in Denmark.
- Jump Cut: Several jump cuts are used as Amin breaks out his old journal and begins to read aloud. He says that he's been speaking Danish so long that he's no longer comfortable reading Dari, but it really seems to be more like unease over confronting past memories.
- Manly Gay: Not devoid of a few moments of campiness, Amin is pretty much as masculine as possible out of necessity, living surrounded by homophobia in all corners, and has to be strong to survive the violent conditions around him.
- Medium Blending: A mostly animated film is liberally sprinkled with live-action Stock Footage clips of historical moments like the Soviet-Afghan war. Then there's the last shot of the film, where an animated rendering of Amin and Kaspar's backyard cuts to a live-action version of the same shot.
- The Purge: Amin's father is taken away, one of 3000 people arrested by State Sec during a political purge. His family never finds out what happened to him.
- Shout-Out: Amin starts realizing his sexuality as a boy, when he realizes he's not reacting to Jean-Claude Van Damme action movies the way his brothers are. When they're flipping channels he insists the whole family watch Bloodsport.
- Stock Footage: Not all the film is animated: there are many live-action stock footage clips establishing settings, like Afghanistan During the War, or Moscow in the early '90s as Russia reels from the fall of Communism.
- Transparent Closet: Amin is terrified that if he tells his family he's gay, they'll disown him. When he finally does it, his brother takes him to a gay bar and says "We always knew."
- Where Everybody Knows Your Flame: Amin finally confesses to his siblings that he's gay. His brother takes him for a ride in the car, then drops him off...in front of a gay bar. It's a liberating moment for Amin.
- Why We're Bummed Communism Fell: Amin notes that the fall of communism in Russia left the people starving, with empty shelves, a skyrocketing crime rate, and out-of-control corruption.
