FLEE

Flee definitely has a distinct animated look, but the dramatic power of the picture is undercut by a lack of original touches to the often told refugee story.

Animated documentary Flee starts intriguingly and ends on an emotional note. Such a shame then that everything in between plays things rather safe.

The movie tells the true-life tale of Amin, who as a boy was forced to flee Afghanistan and after a detour to Moscow escapes to Denmark. Made up of various animated interviews with Amin, occasionally interspersed with documentary footage from the eighties and nineties, Flee definitely has a distinct look, even if some of the animation comes off a bit cheap.

But the dramatic power of the picture is undercut by adding hardly any original touches to the often told refugee story. This frustrates even more because paying extra attention to Amin's struggle with accepting his sexual orientation would have given Flee added depth. Now it is mostly used as an occasional footnote.

Had the film indulged further in its impressionistic sequences, that do have the personal touch missing in other scenes, Flee would have stood out a lot more.

release: 2022

director: Jonas Poher Rasmussen

starring: Daniel Karimyar, Fardin Mijdzadeh, Milad Eskandari