Really good movie. I've had a good start of the week watching four-star 2021 Oscar nominees, with CODA and this on consecutive nights. Flee is the sort of movie that would have perfectly filled the outsider animation slot I always reserve at MIFF, as it also reminds me of a MIFF movie called Chris the Swiss from a few years back. Probably the reason I call it "really good" rather than great -- though it might be great -- is because of the existence of predecessors like Waltz With Bashir and Chris the Swiss. Presumably members of the Academy lauded this as much as they did because they thought it was a completely original vision, when really, it owes quite a debt to those two other films.
I say it's opportune because the film ever-so-subtly alludes to the conflict in Ukraine, which was no more than simmering at the time the film was made.
Some mild spoilers to follow.
Flee concerns a man named Amin -- not his real name as his identity is being protected -- who is currently living in Denmark, looking back on an emigration from Afghanistan that had many fits and starts, including a long, sad period in Moscow where he and his family hid indoors all day watching Mexican soap operas because they didn't have the proper paperwork to walk the streets without being harassed by corrupt Russian police officers. He's also gay, but to quote Leslie Nielsen, "that's not important right now."
It's actually two long, sad periods in Russia because he gets sent back there at one point after successfully leaving. I suppose it's better than getting sent back to Afghanistan, but only just.
We see, in the animations of his memory, Amin and and his family being shaken down by these corrupt officers, who regularly relieve them of watches, rings, and whatever cash they happen to have on their person. The only thing you can really say for them is that they honor the code between bribers and bribees -- unwitting or otherwise -- in that they at least let them walk after extracting this fee from them. I suppose they could have taken the money and sent them back to Afghanistan.
At one point, when Amin and his brother have been thrown into the back of a windowless truck, also in the truck is a frightened girl of about their age, and about their geographic origin in the world. Again Amin and his brother are let go after the fee is extracted, but the girl is not so lucky. Two officers go in and shut the door, presumably proceeding to have their way with her. All present-day Amin can say, with tears in his eyes, is that he should have stopped it. Of course, Amin had the power to do no such thing in that situation.
Because he's looking back from present day in Copenhagen, we know this eventually had a happy ending -- for Amin at least. And true enough, when he does finally get connected up with a more expensive trafficker who won't leave him in the pitch black hull of a boat crossing the Baltic Sea for two days with 40 other people, and he's assigned Copenhagen as his ultimate destination, do you know what the airline is that finally escorts him to freedom?
Ukraine International Airlines.
You could almost hear an imaginary crowd cheering when that name came up on the screen.
I have to wonder if this was a sign of intentional solidarity by director Jonas Poher Rasmussen, even before the fact, or if it was just a coincidental real-life detail that he didn't change. Nor is there anything else Ukraine-related that happens in the movie. Nor should the actively villainous behavior of Russian police officers and the passively heroic behavior or Ukrainian pilots be extrapolated outward to represent the souls of the other citizens of those countries. There are wonderful people in Russia and incredible jerks in Ukraine, just like anywhere else.
But it did make for a timely metaphor for what's going on right now, and felt incredibly satisfying to watch.
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