North Korean Cinema

[MichaelB]

From Babara Demick's 'Nothing to Envy', an attempt at an insider's-eye view at North Korean life mostly sourced from the reminiscences of defectors (which is about as good an account as we're likely to get):

There was only one reprieve for Mi-ran in her hometown—the cinema.

Every town in North Korea, no matter how small, has a movie theater, thanks to Kim Jong-il’s conviction that film is an indispensable tool for instilling loyalty in the masses. In 1971, when he was thirty years old, Kim Jong- il got his first job, overseeing the Workers’ Party’s Bureau of Propaganda and Agitation, which ran the country’s film studios. He published a book in 1973, On the Art of Cinema, in which he expounded on his theory that “revolutionary art and literature are extremely effective means for inspiring people to work for the tasks of the revolution.”

Under Kim Jong-il’s direction, the Korean Feature Film Studio on the outskirts of Pyongyang was expanded to a 10-million-squarefoot lot. It churned out forty movies per year. The films were mostly dramas with the same themes: The path to happiness was self-sacrifice and suppression of the individual for the good of the collective. Capitalism was pure degradation. When I toured the studio lot in 2005, I saw a mock-up of what was supposed to be a typical street in Seoul, lined with run-down storefronts and girly bars.

No matter that the films were pure propaganda, Mi-ran loved going to the movies. She was as much a cinephile as one could be growing up in a small town in North Korea. From the time she was old enough to walk to the theater herself, she begged her mother for money to buy tickets. Prices were kept low—just half a won, or a few cents, about the same as a soft drink. Mi-ran saw everything she could. Some movies were deemed too risqué for children, such as the 1985 film Oh My Love in which it was suggested that a man and a woman kissed. Actually, the leading lady modestly lowered her parasol so moviegoers never saw their lips touch, but that was enough to earn the film the equivalent of an R rating. Hollywood films were, of course, banned from North Korea, as were virtually all other foreign films, with the exception of an occasional entry from Russia. Mi-ran especially liked the Russian films because they were less propagandistic than North Korean ones and more romantic.

Perhaps it was inevitable that a dreamy girl who went to the cinema for on-screen romance should have found there for herself the real thing.

They met in 1986, when there was still enough electricity to run the movie projectors. The culture hall was the most imposing structure in town, built in a rather grandiose style popular in the 1930s, when Korea was occupied by Japan. Two stories high, big enough to accommodate a mezzanine, the theater had a huge portrait of Kim Il-sung covering its facade. The dimensions were dictated by regulations that all images of the Great Leader be commensurate with the size of the building. The culture hall served as a cinema, theater, and lecture hall. On public holidays, such as Kim Il-sung’s birthday, it would host contests to name the citizens who best followed the example of the Great Leader. The rest of the time the theater showed movies, a fresh film arriving every few weeks from Pyongyang.

Jun-sang was every bit as crazy about the movies as Mi-ran. As soon as he heard there was a new film, he rushed to be first to see it. The film on this particular occasion was Birth of a New Government. It was set in Manchuria during World War II, where Korean Communists led by a young Kim Il-sung had been organized to resist the Japanese colonial occupation. The anti- Japanese resistance was as familiar a theme in North Korean cinema as cowboys and Indians was in early Hollywood. The movie was expected to draw big crowds because it starred a popular actress.

[aox]

Babara Demick's 'Nothing to Envy'

To everyone in this thread with an even passing interest in North Korea or totalitarian states, this happens to be the best book I read this year. Everyone should read it.

[James Mills]

Babara Demick's 'Nothing to Envy'

To everyone in this thread with an even passing interest in North Korea or totalitarian states, this happens to be the best book I read this year. Everyone should read it.

Just purchased it, thanks a bunch to both of you. Matter of fact, thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread, I've spent the last hour researching it all.

I recently watched National Geographic: Inside North Korea and was blown away; strongly recommended.

[Lemmy Caution]

A State Insult with Chinese Characteristics

How to evaluate the results of last week’s China-U.S. summit in Washington? Improbably, the key for the entire event may lie in what is usually the least memorable portion of these carefully choreographed occasions: the cultural program at the concluding state banquet.

During the dinner’s musical interlude and following a duet with American jazz musician Herbie Hancock, Chinese pianist Lang Lang treated the assembled dignitaries to a solo of what he described as “a Chinese song: ‘My Motherland.’” (You can watch this on YouTube.)

The Chinese delegation was clearly delighted: Chinese President and Communist Party chief Hu Jintao, stone-faced for many of his other photo ops in Washington, beamed with pleasure upon hearing the melody and embraced Lang Lang at the song’s conclusion (see it on YouTube too). President Obama, for his part, amiably praised Lang Lang for his performance and described the event as "an extraordinary evening."

But what, exactly, is this “gorgeous” and “beautiful” (Hu’s words) tune that so entranced China’s visiting leadership?

“My Motherland” is not a “Chinese song” in any ordinary meaning of the term. Instead, it is a Mao-era propaganda classic: the theme from "Triangle Hill" (Shangganling), a film in which heroic Chinese forces fight, kill, and eventually beat Americans in pitched battle during the Korean War.

“My Motherland” epitomizes the “Resist America, Aid [North] Korea” campaign that Beijing embraced during and after the Korean War. It celebrates Sino-American enmity. The gist of the tune can be seen in its lyrics (see the Wikipedia translation):

When friends are here, there is fine wine
But if the wolves come
What greets it is the hunting gun.

(Two guesses who “the wolves” are.)

“My Motherland” is still famous in China; indeed, it is well-known to practically every Chinese adult to this very day. Unfortunately, this political anthem and its significance were evidently unknown to the many members of the administration’s China team—the secretary and deputy secretary of State, the assistant secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific, and the National Security Council’s top two Asia experts—who were on hand at the state dinner and heard this serenade. Clueless about the nature of the insult, they did not know to warn the president that he would embarrass himself and his country by not only sitting through the song, but by congratulating Lang Lang for it afterward.

[lady wakasa]

Clueless about the nature of the insult, they did not know to warn the president that he would embarrass himself and his country by not only sitting through the song, but by congratulating Lang Lang for it afterward.

Although Lang Lang said in an interview afterwards that he had no idea of the song's provenance, either. Whether or not that's true, I don't know.

(also, the article itself is out of the AEI, which has been a fairly conservative place for decades - I once looked into working there right out of college - and sadly, today everything is political)

[matrixschmatrix]

It does sound like the sort of reasoning that would lead one to assume that performing Mac the Knife at a state dinner was a radical Socialist statement due to the song's Brechtian origins.

[MichaelB]

David Cameron made a similar faux pas recently when he and a British delegation turned up in Beijing wearing Remembrance Day poppies.

This would be completely unexceptional in Britain in early November - in fact, it would be a mini-scandal if a Conservative Prime Minister hadn't been wearing one in public - but the symbolic meaning was lost on the Chinese, who associate poppies with opium.

And in general, even the most oblique reference to the notorious Opium War between Britain and China in the 19th century is probably best avoided.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

I mentioned this to a couple of Chinese around Lang Lang's age (he's 28) -- they both knew the song but had no idea it came from a film. So I can at least believe his side of the story, even if that doesn't fully account for it. (As an aside, China's national anthem comes from a film too and was essentially conceived as an anti-Japanese song.)

On the main subject of this thread, I just discovered this French boxset of four North Korean films (French subs only). The films are The Flower Girl (1972), The Tale of Chunhyang (1980), Bellflower (1987) and The Schoolgirl's Diary (2006). No surprising choices -- they're all (relatively) well-known, and all but the last played as part of the Korean Society's "Films From the North" series -- but I think this is the only DVD release of Chunhyang and The Schoolgirl's Diary.

[Lemmy Caution]

Yes, that's the Wild Side release I spotted and mentioned last page.
Thanks for the linkage.
No English though, only French subtitles (and Chinese subs here as well).
I assume the films are related to the propaganda and melodrama variety produced in China during the 50's, 60's and 70's.

I should ask around if people here are aware of the anti-imperialist, anti-American nature of the song, or if they just think of it as generically patriotic. My guess is that people are long used to tuning out the old propaganda. Though anti-Japanese and anti-American frenzy can get stirred up pretty quickly here.

[MichaelB]

North Korean film criticism:

Comrades!
I am terrored! A film has just arrived on the markets of Cameroon, this film the American Police Team or some name that is similar. My nephew, purchased this and asked me to watch because he said is had something to do with DPRK. The shock I see! The general, beloved general, Kim Jong Il is a puppet character in this film and speaking the most offending things! He swears in English, kills his interpreter, and turns into a small insect at the end. They make the Dear Leader to be evil man, and lonely man. They find risible the undying love of the Korean people? They think the leadership of DPRK and the revolution is a joke? Forgive me for saying but makers of this film are bastard people! I denounce them and curse them! Bastard people!
Can we not complain to someone about such slander? Why has not the KCNA denounced this piece of capitalist propaganda? To think that they make light of the general and debase his greatness!

Actually, that was by a devout North Korea sympathiser, originally posted on a now-defunct North Korean Friendship forum (hence no link), which was full of nutters wanting to emigrate there because it was the country least tainted by American imperialism.

[broadwayrock]

Fascinating documentary on the lives of some North Korean film students.

The filmmakers of the documentary also have a blog with additional posts/photos of the North Korean film industry:

http://www.lianainfilms.net/search/label/North%20Korea" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[lordrsb]

Fascinating documentary on the lives of some North Korean film students.

Very interesting, thanks for sharing the link. Shame about the inevitable state restrictions, though.

'Genius of Cinema' should have been one of Kim Jong-il's official titles.

The production company, Lianain Films, are releasing an independent documentary about DPRK's film industry, The Great North Korean Picture Show (although it was slated for a 2012 release - and the year's in its final hours as I write).

[htdm]

An update on The Great North Korean Picture Show from a few days ago.