Lifting the veil on a North Korean obsession
Posted: Friday, April 10, 2009 8:22 AM
Filed Under:
Beijing, China
By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
BEIJING –North Korea has been in the news a lot lately, but for all the articles on its recent missile test or senior leader Kim Jong Il’s health, the isolated state remains a mystery – secretive and opaque.
But tucked away in a small residential compound here in central Beijing, a small exhibition of that rarest of pop culture media – North Korean film posters – helps demystify the country.
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| Courtesy of Koryo Tours |
| A poster for the North Korean film “A Girl Barber.” |
“We wanted to do something that would teach people about the place,” said Nick Bonner, a co-founder of Koryo Tours, a group that leads tours of North Korea, who organized the exhibition.
The 25 posters on display were used to publicize overseas films released from the 1960s to the present. Accompanying almost all the artwork are detailed, informative notes – including excerpts from “Korea Film,” a book published by the Korea Film Export & Import Company in Pyongyang.
The medium is the message
Films, of course, have long been a keen interest of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-Il. Although the medium was the preferred propaganda tool in North Korea even before he succeeded his father Kim Il-Sung, the younger Kim is widely credited with keeping the industry alive and thriving.
He even went to the trouble of kidnapping a prominent South Korean director and his wife, a popular actress, in the late 1970s in an effort to revolutionize North Korea’s film industry.
What’s more, he has deftly used movies to justify his succession and grip on power. It was never a given that the younger Kim would become North Korea’s next head of state – film became the primary means he used to carry on his father’s legacy and solidify his own status, according to Suk-Young Kim, a scholar of North Korean arts and culture who teaches at the University of California-Santa Barbara.
The posters included in the exhibit represent films notable for both their political and cultural value.
Such as “The Flower Girl,” a 1972 film based on a novel rumoured to have been conceived, and possibly written, by Kim Jong Il’s father. The movie – depicting the life of a poor, young flower-seller who endures a series of disasters before being rescued by the Revolutionary Army – was popular even here in China, shown widely back in its day.
Decades later, another film, “The Schoolgirl’s Diary,” telegraphs similar messages of patriotism but also of service to the fatherland. It’s the story of a rebellious young girl who struggles to cope with the absence of her father, a computer engineer who spends more time on his research than with his family. She finds redemption just as he achieves a scientific breakthrough for the country.
At least a third of North Korea’s population is believed to have seen “The Schoolgirl’s Diary,” which was released in 2006. It was also the first North Korean film ever to be shown in the West when it was picked up for distribution a year later in France. (It enjoyed a much poorer showing among the French.)
Iconic images
The posters themselves are quite noteworthy. Some of them, particularly those dating from the 1960s, exude the predictable kitsch – hand painted with vibrant colors, faces beaming expressive ardour. In comparison, the more recent posters are more subtle, relying on photography and computer-generated graphics.
“You can see a development in technique, because people started using computers,” said Simon Cockerell of Koryo Tours, who wrote up the film notes for the exhibit. “But [the posters] still look a bit out of time. Timelessness, it’s a unique skill the North Koreans have!”
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| Adrienne Mong/NBC News |
| A poster for "Souls Protest," a film some have dubbed North Korea's "Titanic." |
The function of the artwork, however, isn’t confined to advertising movies.
“The images are so iconic,” said the scholar Suk-Young Kim.
Like those from post-revolutionary China, North Korean film posters “tend to emphasize the healthy, beautiful bodies of North Korean or Chinese people,” she said. “That’s quite important for their visual politics. These films are supposed to be cheerleaders of North Korean people, [showing they] are strong enough to stand up against foreign invaders and indignities.”
Moreover, the importance of the posters can outweigh that of the films they promote. “With films, when they end, it’s over, you come back to reality,” said Kim. “But what these posters do is extend that image of heroism and nationalism into everyday space and everyday life.”
Often, film poster images end up as wall murals, large-scale billboards, on the covers of books or magazines, or even, as Kim pointed out in the case of “The Flower Girl,” on bank notes.
Evolution of film
Another aspect of North Korean film – also captured in the posters’ vivid imagery – is the government’s ability “to sustain an ongoing war spirit in peacetime,” according to the scholar Kim. The Korean War was the last major national conflict Pyongyang engaged in, and yet the leadership has managed to perpetuate a proud sense of isolationism amongst its citizenry.
A good example is the film “Souls Protest” – released in 2000, it is also known as the North Korean “Titanic.” The film dramatizes the mysterious sinking of a ship ferrying thousands of Koreans home from Japan in 1945 and fuels a conspiracy theory that the Japanese were behind the incident. As Cockerell noted, the movie reminds Korean viewers that Japan was “a cruel colonizer.”
Many contemporary film themes are also quite topical. “Street of Love,” released in 2003, is a love story between a bus driver and a beer factory researcher. Although that might seem somewhat incongruous, the motive here is clear – to parade North Korea’s technological advances despite years of deprivation.
The film showcases the Taedonggang beer factory, which was once a brewery based in Towbridge, southwest England. The brewery was dismantled and shipped over to the outskirts of Pyongyang in 2000 – components, equipment, everything but the hops. Relying on German brewing production technology, the Taedonggang brewery started up two years later. (Word is that the final product is a respectable version of a British bitter….)
What’s next?
On Thursday, Kim Jong Il made a rare appearance after a suspected stroke last year, looking worn and gaunt. Given his strong influence on the country’s film industry, one can only imagine what themes might emerge now that he seems to be ailing.
Koryo Tours are working on an exhibition catalogue on North Korean film posters. For more information, www.koryogroup.com
