Author: Yanbin Ma

This week we had a discussion in groups about what we wanted to write about. I spoke to the rest of the group about 3D inking and they were very interested and gave me some very useful advice, for example on the point of entry for the article. I also spoke to my teacher about the topic and he said he had done research in a similar direction and had read my abstract and said it was a viable topic.

Usually when we think of animation, we tend to think of Disney or Hayao Miyazaki’s work, but as a film genre, animation is not just about these stereotypes, it can also be used to express more diverse themes, such as oversized eroticism, with Yang Fan’s Jiyuantai No. 7 being one of the more outstanding examples in recent years. Another recent and refreshing animation is about a gay Afghan refugee, and because it is a true story, the creators have used this particular format to make this amazing documentary in order to protect the identity of the person concerned.

We have seen many documentaries on the subject of Afghan refugees, but this one is a bit like Midnight Walker from a few years ago, also about an Afghan family whose parents take their children through a difficult escape from Afghanistan to the European continent, using the perspective of the refugees themselves to present their painful and horrible memories of the escape, but this one focuses on the double label of the main character: refugee and homosexuality.

The film’s depiction of refugees resorting to immoral (lying) methods in order to enter Europe certainly satirises the flawed European immigration policy and the supposedly messianic tone of the Europeans. In contrast to the cold-blooded snakehead traffickers and corrupt Russian police he encounters on the way out, Europe’s refugee policy is just as frightening and morally torturous for the protagonist, who has to live a lie in order to get a new life. Fortunately, he has the full support of his family, which enables him to be honest about his sexuality and allows him to open up and find a life of his own in a foreign country.

Despite the title of this animated documentary, a life on the run is not the life the protagonist wants. At the very beginning, he explains his idea of “home”: a safe place, a place where he can stop and not have to run, a place that is not temporary. It can be in Afghanistan, but also in Denmark, Sweden, the USA …… and later the refugee family is forced to live in various parts of Europe. From the protagonist’s point of view, if he can find a happy and secure life, a place where he no longer has to repress his instincts, that is his home, and he is willing to take the risk and try, no matter what the price he has to pay for it.

Flugt is a new production for 2021.

Seven years in the making, it seems to be another tired refugee story, but in anime form it evokes a fresh look. The American comic style and low frame rate give the impression of a comic strip, perhaps referring to the unpleasant and tattered nature of memories, or perhaps the less coherent images are the only way to convey the melancholy feeling of “every word cries for blood, every word is incomplete”. The twists and turns of the escape are a clever link between the bad history of West Asia and Eastern Europe all the way through the 1990s, ending in a condensed and profound indictment of the immigration policies of the Nordic countries.

Because it is animated, the rendering of fear is all the more effective: the anxious crowd in the container, the police smashing the door in the cat’s eye, the cold-blooded traffickers in the snow, the indifferent white men on the cruise ship. The audience follows the protagonist as he dives into his nightmare, yet is awake enough to know that it is not a dream. The intertextual telling of past and present is not new, but the pacing is just right. The vox pops test the audience’s emotional feedback to the protagonist, trying to make the audience truly understand, rather than sympathise with the odd anecdote on a superficial level. Emotions that have been suppressed for the entire piece explode in the understanding and acceptance of the family, and the protagonist walks into the bar feeling as free and loved as he does. (Amin’s angst will stay with him for the rest of his life, but he simultaneously needs the narrative to be redeemed, animated in a way that is clearly motivated by the need to protect）