Flee (film)

The core animation team behind the film consisted of around ten animators and cleanup artists in Denmark, as well as a team of coloring artists in France. Each scene would go through a rough pass of animation where the team checked the acting of the characters and the intention. Once Poher Rasmussen approved it, the animators would tighten up the drawings in terms of the look of characters. The cleanup team would then check for the correct brushwork — meant to seem inky and sketchy as if from a graphic novel to give maturity to the line work — before finally shipping it off to the coloring team to embellish the characters. “It was a pretty big machinery,” noted Ladekjær.[14]

In its opening weekend, the film earned $24,794 from four theaters for a per screen average of $6,198.[23]

Flee received widespread critical acclaim, with Sundance juror Kim Longinotto calling it "an instant classic" at the festival's awards ceremony.[24] It holds a 97% approval rating on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 59 reviews, with an average rating of 8.4/10. The critics consensus reads "Depicting the refugee experience through vivid animation, Flee pushes the boundaries of documentary filmmaking to present a moving memoir of self-discovery."[25] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 91 out of 100 based on reviews from 33 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[26] It is also the sixth best reviewed film of 2021 in the website, as well the best reviewed animated film of that year.[27]

UK Film Review gave the film a 5-star rating.[28]

Metacritic reported that Flee appeared on over 33 film critics' top-ten lists for 2021, only the first two animated films appeared on the list this year alongside The Mitchells vs. the Machines. The film ranked first and second on 2 lists.[29]

Parasite director, Bong Joon-ho, listed Flee as one of his favorite films of 2021[30] and wrote a letter dedicated to the movie calling it "The most moving piece of cinema I saw this year."[31]

BBC listed as one of the twenty best films of 2021.[32] Flee also ranked as the seventh best movie of 2021 in an IndieWire poll to 187 critics and journalists.[33]