North
Korea is often viewed in two ways. A joke nation that is too big for its own
boots, as can be seen in Team America:
World Police (Parker, 2005). The other is the ‘Hermit Kingdom’, with people
becoming obsessed by its quirks and ‘otherworldliness’, an exotic outpost that
can never be understood. This latter view is enhanced by the fact that there
are very few images coming from inside the country itself, and all of those are
completely controlled by the government. The images that do come out are often
of no interest to the media, mostly of important people looking at not so
important things (check out http://kimjongillookingatthings.tumblr.com/
if this is the kind of
thing you’re interested in...). But every so often, when a major news event
occurs in North Korea, we are shown video from inside the nation.
The
image above is taken from scenes after the death of Kim Jong-il, and pictures just
like these, of women, men and children weeping openly and hysterically spread
around the globe. They were however met with a great deal of suspicion (and
rightly so), for they feel staged, the people completely aware that the camera
is there. They are weeping, but there seem to be no tears, arguably nothing
more than actors in another North Korean production. After recently re-watching
these videos, I asked myself, how can we see some truth from North Korea?
Perhaps
the obvious way would be to visit, but these visits are controlled short tours
around Pyongyang. Having known someone who has been able to visit, although
interesting, it was clear that he was unable to learn anything new from this
visit, and instead was only able to see run-of-the-mill propaganda images. You
could read some of the interesting books writing by people who have managed to
escape, such as The Aquariums of
Pyongyang or Escape from Camp 14, which
are some of the handful of accounts that come from North Koreans themselves,
and are fantastic books. These however are always only done in hindsight of
people who are no longer living there. However, the only way to get a current
image of North Korean society is through the distorted lens of the Kim family.
Cinema
plays an important role in North Korean society, with many towns and cities
having a local cinema ready to show new Korean films, or the occasional Soviet
film. We are given some idea of its popularity in Nothing To Envy, as we are told how two young lovers originally met
during the opening of a film, however the large crowd between them meant they
could not speak to each other. These screenings present the chance for the
government to reaffirm its ideology to its population, not too dissimilar to
other totalitarian governments. However, as with many other things in North
Korea, the level of control and censorship is at such an extreme level, that it
is almost useless to compare it to other governments or societies. Compared to
the Soviet Union for example, although censorship did exist, directors had a
relatively free reign on their own films. Each film (or song, or meal, or
school lesson among most things) made in North Korea must be explicitly in
honour of Kim Il-Sung, Kim Jong-il, and now Kim Jong-un. This stifles much
creativity, and films often drift into telling the audience how fantastic the
leaders are, but we are still able to get some insight into North Korea.
A
brief history runs as strangely as anything else in North Korean history. Kim
Il-Sung has been credited with writing Kotpanum
Chonio (Ik-kyu and Hak, 1972), as well as Kim Jong-il receiving production
credits on Han Nyeohaksaengeui Ilgi/The
Schoolgirl’s Dairy (In-hak, 2006). Perhaps the most notorious North Korean
film however, is Pulgasari/Bulgasari (Sang-ok,
1985). Director, Sang-ok and his wife, both whom are South Korean, were kidnapped
by the North Korean authorities in order to make films in North Korea. Kim
Jong-il, also known as a great fan of film[1],
wrote an essay for the film-makers of North Korea, entitled The Cinema and Directing[2]
in which he shares his opinions
on how cinema should be. Interestingly, Jong-il mentions about maintaining
realism, providing an example of an instance of a film where he says that they
are “destroy[ing] the realism of the production and, further, adversely affect
people’s education”.[3]
This requirement for true realism is a struggle however, as can be seen when
watching a North Korean film, and contrasting it with what we do know about the
country, especially of life outside of Pyongyang. This could be given the
paradoxically term constructed realism, where a set of conditions are given to
a director by a producer (in this case, Kim Jong-il) who wants to demonstrate
an ideological view of where s/he comes from, a distorted utopian reality. What
could be argued is that these constructed realism showing North Korea as
perfect and faultless, is no different to many average Hollywood films produced
about America (Independence Day (1994), Captain
America: The First Avenger (2011) just a pair of many examples) . Despite these constructed reality
films however, there are still moments of genuine truth, that shows the
audience some of realistic moments, however these are nearly always cut short.
The Schoolgirl’s Dairy opens with a startling shot
that wouldn’t be out of place in many European art films, following a young
girl from behind as she walks down a path from school. What is just as
interesting is the fact her schoolbag is a Mickey Mouse bag, an American (or,
The Imperialist Enemy) hero. Here shows a small infiltration of Western culture
that one would suspect that North Korea would rather keep under-wraps, although
interestingly enough, this is not the only occasion Mickey Mouse has been to
North Korea[4].
We also have a slightly different moment, where an emotional moment shows
another piece of flair by In-Hak. Upon being informed that his wife has cancer,
the camera begins to swirl around the Father, and the image becomes a white
bright image. We then see his daughter trying to talk to him, but instead of
her voice, we hear melancholy music.
Her
walking down the dusty paths home from school, camera slightly jerky, or the
camera swirling around the Father, are some of the few moments of seemingly
spontaneity, in an otherwise almost exclusively controlled style of directing
from In-Hak. These moments do occur, but almost always conclude with the camera
finally settling in a still position to focus on the characters. This can be
read as the continued stifling of the North Korean regime on forms of creativity
and spontaneity. These moments are so few and far between, that they become
standout instances in an otherwise extremely ‘paint-by-numbers’ film.
The
poverty stricken, starving people that we know about in North Korea, are
replaced by green gardens full of vegetables, bright clothes, smiling Mothers,
and expectedly so. These are the propaganda images that are important for the
sustainability of the Juche ideology, but have become so uncommon, that they
become fake ideas of the reality of North Korea. In Nothing To Envy, we are told of the residents of Chongjin, in the
North East of the country. A formally powerfully influential city is reduced to
men and children sitting in train stations, literally starving to death
awaiting trains that never arrive, hoping to illegally travel to a new city in
the search of food. These children, dressed in rags, would barely recognise
these bright images shown in The Schoolgirl’s Dairy.
On The Green Carpet (Kwang-il Jon, Chang-bom Rim,
2001), is based around a Mass Gymnastic Event, one of the great spectacles that
can be seen in North Korea. The film was
made in the immediate aftermath of the height of the Korean famine, while the
country was (and, still is), recovering from mass starvation due to
miss-management of food supplies alongside extreme flooding. This, although
never discussed, can be seen in short moments of truth that can reveal deeper
meanings. An example of this can be seen when the children, during a picnic,
are told of the benefits of basic food produce such as rice and wheat and how
to squeeze it all into one meal. This is hidden under a veil of everyone eating
abundantly however, with the children having plenty to eat during their picnic,
as well as the family having plates of food and full glasses of beer. We are
shown the reality that the North Korean population want to be given, where food
is plentiful, but there is an occasionally subtle acknowledgement that they
need to make do with what they have, even if this amount is greatly
exaggerated. How the people eat is the reality North Korea want, fake and
constructed to fulfil what the North Korean people are told.
The
children, and the audience, are reminded that “the children have nothing to
envy in the world”. Ironically, ‘Nothing to Envy’ is also the title of the book
by Barbara Demick looking at the real lives of those living in North Korea.
Maybe the most important theme in the film is the mutual love between Kim
Jong-il and the children of North Korea, who are constantly told how much Kim
Jong-il cares for them, for example being told things such as his desire to
give his coat to all the children who were out in the rain during a performance
he saw. The children, who take part in the performance group we follow, are
told they are the planets orbiting the sun, which represents Kim Jong-il, and
they must protect him. We see in a flashback, the coach of the group demanding
to perform in a show for Kim Jong-il despite his Mother dying the same morning.
Brainwashing of the young children is a vital component of maintaining power
for the Kim family, with them being taught of their heroic deeds from their
very first days at school. These stories are again, far from the truth, but are
told so often, children have no choice but to believe it. Who are they to
question if Kim il-Sung really did defeat armies by himself, or that Kim
Jong-il does not need to urinate, when it is told to them from day one? These
constructed realities spill into real life, and slowly become the truth for
these children to carry into adulthood. There is a blurring of reality and fake
that is started from birth. What the North Korean people see in real life is
not the truth, but rather what they read in the newspapers and see in their
infrequent cinema visits is.
One of
the few films from North Korea that deals with the outsider visiting the
country is The Country I Saw (Ko Hak
Rim and Jon Hong Sok, 1988) which is about a Japanese visitor to the country. The
notion of dealing with the outsider presents a confusing ideology that often
contradicts itself, both wanting to invite them in for monetary gains, but also
fearful of outside influence. Predictably, eventually the Japanese visitor is
amazed by North Korea and wants to stay. He is given free health care (we are
supposed to believe that wooden teeth are an amazing medical treatment!),
plenty of food, the normally all too rare tractors are commonly seen, as well
as becoming fully aware of the horrors that the Japanese inflicted upon the
Korean people during the war, despite the Korean peoples defiance. What is most
interesting about this film is that it is consciously aware of the outsider,
looking in. The film comes across as a tourism advert, attempting to bring in
non-North Koreans (interestingly enough, leading tour group Koryo Tours was set
up only a few years after the film had its release[5]).
We are shown how main character Takahashi Minoru is allowed to freely visit the
country, telling his guides on a whim what he wishes to do and where to go.
This is clearly in confliction with the reality of visiting the country, which
are often blighted by strict tours of certain places, limited availability to
take photos and constantly being confronted with dead-ends. However, what
tourists and immigrants did bring was an influx of foreign currency. The
country was becoming desperately short of hard currency around the late 80s,
and money that was coming in, mostly from Japan, was helping to keep the
country on its feet. What we can see in The
Country I Saw, is some of first attempts of the government inviting some
kind of investment into North Korea by selling the idea of it being the perfect
homeland. Whereas normally the cinema of North Korea is used to reaffirm the
‘constructed realism’ to the North Korean audience, we are also given
‘constructed realism’ for the outsider looking in. This however is contradicted
throughout due to the deep-seated mistrust of the foreigner, especially the
Japanese.
We know
that the treatment of Japanese inside North Korea, or even those with links to
Japanese people, is never as friendly as that shown in The Country I Saw. In The
Aquariums of Pyongyang, as well as Nothing
To Envy, we receive accounts of those who had travelled from Japan to North
Korea during the recovery after the Korean War. Kang Chol-Hwan tells us of the
suspicion that automatically attaches to those people, and this family history
of his was the sole reason for him to be sent to Yodok concentration camp.
Despite his family choosing to come back to North Korea, his grandfather was
arrested for treason, and under the three generations of punishment he was sent
to a camp too. During The Country I Saw,
we are often shown and reminded the treatment that the Koreans received at the
hands of the Japanese occupiers, as well as the current Japanese population
being shown as arrogant and dismissive of the North Korean population. Although
the film is attempting to draw in supporters of North Korea, it is not going to
ignore the ‘threat’ from Japan. This ‘imaginary threat’ helps to support the
state of war that North Korea continually force-feds its population, to help keep
the population on side of with the government. By constructing this reality,
and maintaining it through its cinema, the population remain fearful of the
foreign invasion, and continue to mistrust the outsider.
Images
from these films however are shown up when compared with the short instagram
videos taken by David Guttenfield, the Associated Press chief Asia
photographer. Guttenfield was able to take some film footage while in North
Korea, a rare glimpse taken by an outsider. Instead of plentiful fields, we see
endless, empty roads http://instagram.com/p/cDEIq1Aw94/
. Instead of bustling
cities, we see the infamous power cuts that constantly trouble life, even in
the city of Pyongyang http://instagram.com/p/b_Fl2SAw6Z/
. The most powerful video
however may be the simple, short video of two ice cream sellers shyly giggling
to each other http://instagram.com/p/cuxaAHgwz9/
. A simple, human
reaction to being filmed, is able to give us a true human emotion, perhaps the
closest thing to realism that Kim Jong-il desired in his manifesto. Through
this short video, we are reminded that no matter how different a place we may
come from, basic human nature remains intact.
By
blurring the boundaries of reality and fiction, North Korean cinema and
government have managed to create a new type of realism cinema that perpetrates
certain ideas that they wish to become ‘reality’. By continually telling the
public lies, they eventually become reality. How can you tell the difference
between real and fake, when you seem to be the only one outside your household
who see’s starvation and poverty? The North Korean government are able to
construct their own reality through fear, which they are able to reinforce
through cinema, just like Hollywood is able to reinforce racial or gender
stereotypes through its films. Watching North Korean as an outsider however, as
the non-intended audience who are strangely more aware of the situation, are
able to reel out moments of ‘true reality’, albeit it tiny chunks. If we tell
the people to cry for our leader, eventually, the people will cry.
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