This year’s Academy Award ceremony will involve an unprecedented situation — the opportunity for a single feature to be considered “Best” in 3 separate categories: International; Animated; and Documentary. That film is the Danish production titled “Flee”, and the attention that it has received is certainly deserved.
The true story presented in the movie is that of a now-middle-aged man , who was eventually (and very eventfully) able to be resettled in Denmark after many grueling and perilous years of persecution and displacement, beginning during the first Taliban takeover of power in his native Afghanistan. And while the biographic narrative centers on “Amin” (the pseudonym given to the central character for personal privacy reasons), the tale widens to encompass the experiences of his entire nuclear family, as they seek secure conditions beyond their troubled homeland — at some periods together and at others separately.
The most recent compilation, as of mid-2021, of the global refugee crisis done by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees [UNHCR] placed the number of “displaced” persons in the world at 84 million, of which 2.6 million were from Afghanistan. This figure is very likely an undercount, all the more so because it precedes the recent tragic events in Ukraine, which has already created another refugee population reported to be 3 million persons, and rising. The magnitude and intensity of this global condition makes the arrival of “Flee” all the more valuable and timely.
Most notably, the experiences of the movie’s protagonist, along with those of his immediate family members, provide an exceptionally wide perspective on most of the major elements of the refugee phenomenon. As a child,”Amin” witnesses his father arrested in his home, due to a presumption of disloyalty to the new authorities, by Taliban operatives — never to return again. As the family’s conditions become more precarious, they depart for a hoped-for greater safety in Russia. But with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, circumstances in this setting become more unstable and threatening, with steady harassment by local police wishing to exploit this group of non-native outsiders.
With the continuing erosion of any sense of security, family members try to escape again into more stable European nations, using carefully accumulated funds sent to them occasionally by the oldest brother, who has managed to start a new life in Sweden. The various separate, and not always successful, efforts by segments of the family expose them to a broad catalogue of the horrors of the contemporary refugee community: corrupt local authorities, heartless smugglers, treacherous transit conditions (such as shipping containers without ventilation, or the cramped hold of a small fishing vessel), discovery/arrest/and deportation, and , overall, recurring stages of depression and desperation.
The profound drama, and immediacy, of what these individuals undergo — and ultimately overcome — is enhanced in remarkable ways by the highly imaginatve integration of film archive materials and animated segments (which allow for depictions of this epic tale in ways that probably could not have been captured on film). The movie “Flee” is many things — gripping, moving, insightful and consciousness-expanding would only be a partial list.
While the enormity of our planet’s refugee plight, and challenge, continues to grow, the wonderous cinematic offering that is “Flee” will surely help all who encounter it to understand more fully, and better yet, to empathize with those of our fellow-humans who — past, present or future — find themselves in the grouping called “refugees”.
SAMPAN, published by the nonprofit Asian American Civic Association, is the only bilingual Chinese-English newspaper in New England, acting as a bridge between Asian American community organizations and individuals in the Greater Boston area. It is published biweekly and distributed free-of-charge throughout metro Boston; it is also delivered to as far away as Hawaii.
