FLEE (2021)

The Animated Documentary, an oxymoronic idea that’s worked as a niche genre (really a niche within a niche as three examples of the form are Middle-East based), starting with the Iranian coming-of-age memoir PERSEPOLIS/’07, drawn in a stylized b&w realization that had little to do with the more realistic tone WALTZ WITH BASHIR/’08 used for its look-back-in-sorrow Israeli military scandal.  FLEE, an Afghanistan to Denmark Bildungsroman, lands somewhere between them, unraveling the truth behind ‘Amin,’ youngest son in a family trying to get to The West, holding fast to his asylum seeker’s fibs.  Structured as a series of confessional interviews between the now 30-something Amin and an old school pal (director/writer Jonas Poher Rasmussen) interviewing him for the film we are watching (very ‘meta’), animation proves a huge improvement on documentary re-enactments.  Loaded with moving family drama & suspense, there’s also a gay angle that might have overloaded things in other hands; not here.  The only constant of Amin’s life in interim country purgatory, the consistently corrupt Russian police.  Equally memorable/dangerous encounters all thru the pic, with a particularly fine set piece involving a Cruise Ship dwarfing their jammed illegal immigrant boat as it glides by.  Here and there, the film is a little shy on keeping us fully informed, but generally too honest and moving to nitpick.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Similar issues beautifully handled in Live-Action documentary style as a gay couple from Mexico sneak illegally into the U.S. in the immigrant saga I CARRY YOU WITH ME/’21.   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2021/01/i-carry-you-with-me-te-llevo-conmigo.html  But FLEE feels closer to the animated docs mentioned above: PERSEPOLIS/’07 and WALTZ WITH BASHIR/’08  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2011/08/waltz-with-bashir-2008.html