When Amin Nawabi started talking about his father in the film Flee, I was able to feel his raw emotions; I could recognize and understand how devastated he was when his father was taken away from him. The director’s stylistic and narrative choices certainly helped establish and build my understanding of Nawabi’s trauma.

In terms of stylistic choices, I saw the director Jonas Poher Rasmussen utilize three distinct types of visuals which helped emphasize the pain Nawabi felt when his father was taken away. In chronological order of the film, Rasmussen decided to introduce the topic of Nawabi’s father with a colorful cartoon adaptation of Nawabi’s family, excluding Nawabi’s father, sitting together in their house in Afghanistan. Rasmussen then shifts from this cartoon adaptation to a real televised film featuring the new Afghani government. The final transition of this sequence occurs when Rasmussen transitions to an indistinct black and white description of the moment Nawabi’s father was taken from the family. All these shifts in visuals effectively helped me understand the pain Nawabi felt when his father was taken away from him. With a cartoon depiction of a true story, it is easy to forget what being depicted is an actual true story. It is easy to get lost in the colorful visuals of the cartoon depiction of Nawabi’s story, but Rasmussen manages to reel the audience back by introducing a real televised film that introduces context as to why Nawabi’s father could have been taken, the reason being the new Afghani government felt threatened by Nawabi’s father’s presence. The introduction of the real televised scene helped remind me that the film is based on a true story, and that the events described not only happened in history, but also happened to multiple Afghan families who were all victim to the new Afghani government. Apart from that, Rasmussen’s decision to provide an indistinct black and white visual was also effective. The stark contrast between the buildup to Nawabi’s story about his father, which was colorful, to the actual scene depicting his father’s departure, which was black and white, made me realize how negatively impacted Nawabi was by his father’s removal. In contrast to the colorful animations, the black and white animations are impactful because they are limited and tend to focus on the more traumatic moments of Nawabi’s life. Having a distinction and purposely making Nawabi’s father’s removal displayed in different tones helped emphasize how pained Nawabi felt by his dad’s removal. Also, I thought it was an interesting approach to have the scene of Nawabi’s dad visually indistinct compared to the earlier animated depictions which were very color and detailed focused. The indistinctness of the black and white scene emphasizes how the removal of his dad was a blur for Nawabi; perhaps the moment was so painful, he doesn’t want to remember it.  

In terms of narrative choices, I believe the music accompanying each scene and narration helps reinforce the mood the director wanted to portray. In comparison to the colorful animation, the realistic televised scene introduced eerie background music which helped emphasize a scary mood. This is effective in that it emphasizes how scared Nawabi was by the new Afghani government. He was scared by the fact that they had the power to take his father, but also the eerie music can re-emphasize how the government mysteriously made his father “disappear.” On the other hand, in the black and white scene where the father was taken away, violin instrumental was used to build a sympathetic mood for Nawabi. It makes sense to use a slow-paced violin in the background, because Nawabi frequently mentions how he views the removal of his father as “sad.” All in all, the director Ramussen’s specific visual and narrative choices were very effective because they all helped emphasize how traumatized Nawabi is by the removal and “disappearance” of his father.