Under the Sun

Hey, a North Korea documentary! Going into this one, I expected - with hindsight embarrassment, because obviously making such a thing is absolutely impossible - a fly-on-the-wall documentary about day-to-day life in the most secluded and isolated country on earth. What this is instead might be even more fascinating, though. See, in order to film any footage in North Korea at all, the Russian director had to agree to let the DPRK write the script and supervise all of the shooting. That's right - North Korea only signed off on the documentary because they thought it was a propaganda film they had total control over. But they let their collective guard down and let all kinds of footage escape.

There's nothing profound here - North Korea is North Korea, you know what North Korea is, it's North Korea! - but it's still pretty interesting to get a glimpse at how Pyongyang tries (and in some weird ways succeeds) to present itself as an idyllic paradise of happiness and eternal glory instead of the cold, dingy, concrete shit hole it very clearly is. There's also plenty to be said about the people in this movie - both the "stars" who knew they would be in it, and seem on edge and nervous all the time, and also the director-handler-escort crew carefully staging multiple scenes and encouraging the documentary subjects to be happier, more enthusiastic, and louder.

Here's the trailer. I watched the trailer after the movie and only then did it hit me that, holy shit, North Korea thinks of itself as a Wes Anderson movie, twee and happy and storybook-esque and unconcerned with the real world.

It's on Netflix, if you're interested.