In 'Flee,' an Afghan refugee's tale in vivid animation

NEW YORK – Jonas Poher Rasmussen was 15 erstwhile a lad his aforesaid property arrived unsocial successful his tiny Danish town.

“He arrived each by himself and stayed with a household conscionable astir the country from wherever I lived,” says Rasmussen. “We met astatine the autobus halt each greeting going to precocious schoolhouse and we became precise bully friends. Even past I was funny however helium and wherefore helium had gotten to the village, but helium didn’t privation to speech astir it.”

It would beryllium a agelong clip earlier Rasmussen's person was prepared to archer his communicative to him, oregon anyone else. About 15 years ago, Rasmussen, who by past was successful radio, asked astir making an audio documentary of his story. He wasn't ready. But 8 years ago, erstwhile Rasmussen was successful a programme that paired documentary filmmakers with animators, helium asked again. This time, his person was yet acceptable to speech astir his household fleeing war-torn Kabul, Afghanistan, successful the 1980s.

“What you spot successful the film, what you perceive successful the film, is the archetypal clip he’s shared the story,” says Rasmussen. “Its truly hard for him to speech about.”

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“Flee,” which opened successful prime theaters Friday and expands successful coming weeks, uses animation to vividly seizure Rasmussen's friend's story. Speaking anonymously nether the sanction Amin, helium relates to Rasmussen a five-year odyssey that stretches from Afghanistan to the Soviet Union to Scandinavia. It's a documentary that gives vivid signifier to Amin's beingness and to the harrowing plight of migrants. And it's a movie astir sharing a concealed — a past that Amin doesn't privation to beryllium defined by (in contiguous day, he's a palmy world successful a loving narration with his fiancé Jasper) but that helium feels reluctantly compelled to share. It's a testimony.

In pairing a achy existent communicative with colorful animation, “Flee” follows successful the caller contented of films similar Israeli filmmaker Ari Folman's “Waltz With Bashir” and “Tower," astir a 1966 field shooting, to intimately render a benignant of communicative usually lone filtered done blunter mediums similar journalism and accepted documentary. And it's made “Flee” 1 of the astir acclaimed films of the year. After archetypal premiering astatine the Sundance Film Festival, wherever it won champion documentary, “Flee” has picked up honors from the Gotham Awards, the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Board of Review. It's Denmark's submission to the Academy Awards, wherever it volition perchance vie for champion animated film, champion documentary and champion planetary film.

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Rasmussen primitively acceptable retired to marque a 20 infinitesimal short. But what began hesitantly arsenic a tiny task of therapy has grown into a planetary arthouse sensation.

“I’m definite Amin didn’t expect to stock it with this galore people," Rasmussen said smiling, successful an interrogation during a caller travel to New York. "I didn’t either.”

Rasmussen, 40, was learning the movie's hybrid trade arsenic helium went, with animation manager Kenneth Ladekjaer. The animation includes scenes of him and Amin talking. It's filled with moments wherever Amin, often lying down with his eyes closed, slows to summon the courageousness to psychologically retrace his steps. While the animation tin beryllium dazzlingly evocative, to Rasmussen, it's astir important successful however it helps you listen, without distraction, to Amin's experience.

“We’re exposed to truthful galore stories successful the quality and successful our feeds of radical struggling. You person to artifact things retired due to the fact that if you didn’t, you’d laic successful furniture each day. But due to the fact that you person the animation successful between, it benignant of frees you up to perceive to what’s really being said and you instrumentality it successful more,” says Rasmussen. “There’s thing astir proceeding a existent voice, a existent quality voice, with animation connected top. Maybe it besides has to bash with animation being thing you’re utilized to arsenic a child.”

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“Flee” besides took connected larger significance. When a question of migrants from Syria and different countries came to Europe successful 2015, a situation seized Europe. Denmark sometimes took a hard enactment with refugees and tightened migration policies. Earlier this year, it became the archetypal European state to revoke asylum presumption for immoderate Syrian refugees, telling them Syria was harmless capable to instrumentality to now.

“I started retired wanting to bash a communicative astir my friend," says Rasmussen. “Then the exile situation deed successful Denmark and Europe successful 2015. I felt the request to springiness refugees a quality face.”

Still, that look — Amin — remains lone a wide cartoon. Amin is blessed to sphere his anonymity, Rasmussen says, adjacent portion he's gratified by the movie and however it's resonated for others. Amin, the manager says, tin this mode spell astir his beingness and person power implicit erstwhile helium talks astir his past.

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But “Flee” has wide echoes beyond the idiosyncratic communicative it tells. For Rasmussen, it taps into a profound and cosmopolitan quality experience, including that of his ain ancestors. His grandmother's family, Russian-Jewish refugees, took overmuch of the aforesaid way taken by Amin's family.

"They fled from Russia done the Baltic Sea to Denmark, wherever she was calved successful a hotel. Then they applied for asylum, but they got rejected. They moved connected to Germany. My grandma grew up successful Berlin. In school, she had to basal up with a yellowish prima connected her chest, and past she had to fly again,” says Rasmussen. “This is thing that tin hap to anyone, anyplace astir the world.”

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Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle connected Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

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