Flee
Between animation and documentary, the story of Amin, an Afghan refugee in Denmark, the first film nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Film, Best Documentary and Best International Film.
 
Let's be clear, Amin's story would have struck us deeply in any case but it is equally obvious that now, while our eyes are filled with the tragic images coming from Ukraine, it appears more relevant than ever.
Amin escaped from Afghanistan through Russia to Denmark in an escape that lasted years.
On the eve of her wedding with her partner, through interviews and chats with her director friend Jonas Poher Rasmussen, for the first time, after a lifetime of lies, will tell his true story.
There are many threads that Flee follows as it unravels.
It starts, for example, from the history of Afghanistan in the late 1980s , forcing us to turn our gaze towards a country whose destiny seems to have disappeared from the radar of our lazy attention.
When Amin flees, together with his family, in 1989, the only destination is Russia and here his private story it is intertwined with that of the collapse of the communist empire.
Finally there are the various attempts to abandon the Soviet Union and arrive in Europe on a journey of hope and desperation which, inevitably, reminds us of those across the Mediterranean.
To put it in terms that are no longer in fashion today in Flee the private is political and the intimate events of a family of exiles scattered across Europe merge with History with a capital H of the 80s through a series of nations that, even today, appear at the center of international tension.
Remaining indifferent is, clearly, impossible and it is the details that remain imprinted, as indeed is the case for Amin himself.< br />Some are the same ones that forcefully come back to his memory.
The flashing red lights of the shoes of the child in front of him on the first long crossing out of Russia in a forest in the snow.
Others belong to the viewer and everyone will find their own.
The farewell between Amin and the traveling companion of the second escape whose name our protagonist doesn't even remember despite having been part of one of the fundamental moments of his life.
The daily life of this family unit through the years and places, from the innocence of childhood in Kabul to the long lonely afternoons forced inside an anonymous gray tenement on the outskirts of Moscow to watch South American soap operas just to pass the time.
The shelves of Russian supermarkets in 1989 completely devoid of food, the first McDonald's, the eyes and hair of the girl captured by the Russian police a moment before the door of the armored vehicle closes and the protagonist's regret for not having intervened.
Or the wonderful sequence in which Amin finally confesses his homosexuality to his family and what happens after which is impossible to tell without ruining one of the most intense, moving and dripping with affection and love moments of this film.
Because Flee, despite all the issues it addresses, in the end is the story of a family and how it managed to remain together, united, despite everything and beyond the difficulties, traumas and of differences.
A story of love and hope, in short.
What remains to be said about the style chosen is that of the animated film mixed with repertoire clips taken from TV news in a hybrid form which had already been attempted in a different form in Still One Day.
In this case, however, it is not an aesthetic choice but dictated by practical reasons, namely to preserve the real identity of Amin and his family.
It's a shame that sometimes the quality of the animation, especially in the sequences set in the present, is of low quality.
A little more effort would have been enough and we would have a perfect film.
EMILIANO BAGLIO