Adapted from a Danish television series, this documentary commemorates what amounts to an elaborate prank on the dictatorship of North Korea. The filmmaker, Mads Brügger, traveled with two South Korean-born comedians as part of a cultural exchange program. They use English as a common language (and Brügger narrates in English), but since the Koreans don’t understand Danish, the visitors are able to speak freely as they point out the ways in which their visit has been stage-managed by the regime.
The footage is another matter, as like all visitors the Danes were followed by their female “handler” and only visited places the government wanted them to see. Their performance, too, is circumscribed. On the other hand, even in approved footage, Pyongyang is an odd place, looking like a modern city, but with hardly any people visible and hardly any vehicles on its wide boulevards. At state-sanctioned events, thousands of people seem to materialize. Of the Danes, the most interesting is the younger of the comic duo, Jacob, an 18-year-old self-described spastic whose motions are jerky and whose speech—in any language—is hard to follow. He makes the North Koreans—who reputedly kill handicapped babies—uncomfortable, yet the handler almost immediately tells him he’s like a son to her. He’s also the only one of the Danes who recoils at the deception being undertaken; the trio must at all times pretend to admire the strange country.
I didn’t like this as much as I expected to, in part because it confirmed pretty much what I thought I knew about the country, and I think it may have worked better as a reality show, as the semi-rough quality of the footage seems better for TV.
IMDB link
viewed at International House [Philadelphia Film Festival] and reviewed 10/17/10
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