Director: Mads Brügger
(2009)
It’s hard to believe that The Red Chapel is anything but fiction. The premise sounds downright absurd: Danish filmmaker Mads Brügger and two Danish-Korean comedians are permitted into the hermetic country of North Korea to perform a comedy show under the facade of a “cultural exchange.” However, unbeknownst to the regime of the “Supreme Leader,” Kim Jong-il, the Danes intend to shoot a film during their trip that will expose North Korea for the totalitarian dictatorship that it is.
The routine itself – performed by comedians Jacob Nossell (who has a disability that effects his speech, and refers to himself as “spastic”) and Simon Jul – could hardly qualify as amusing. It’s as though it was written to entertain a kindergarten class, complete with kazoos, amateur tap dancing, farting sounds, nonsensical yelling, and other various asinine noises. It is not as though the Danes are under the delusion that their act is hilarious. At one point, Jul himself exasperates that it is not funny. After the first rehearsal, the government emissaries make their extensive revisions. These modification are meant to censure rather than enrich the routine, including limiting the exposure of Nossell due to his disability.Mrs. Pak, an envoy of the government, is delegated to chaperone the Danes during their stint in the country. She is the most prominently featured native in the film, and her interactions with the foreigners offer some insight into life as a North Korean citizen. Despite the damnable stance of the regime towards those with disabilities, she immediately takes a strong liking to Nossell. She goes so far as to say that he is like a son to her just hours after their first meeting. It’s as though she is trying to assuage the guilt she feels about her government’s policy. Later, when Jul innocuously asks her a mundane question regarding what it’s like living in North Korea, she has a hard time fighting tears. The fact that she was struck by such intense emotion at such a pedestrian question clearly indicates that she is either very unhappy or is perhaps not permitted to express how she truly feels.
At one point, Brügger and Nossell attend an anti-US rally eerily reminiscent of a National Socialist gathering in 1940s Berlin. (Jul, as Brügger explains, couldn’t attend due to “diarrhea.” However, one suspects that Jul’s own conscience precluded him from attending.) Brügger falls in line, raising his fist in solidarity with the nationalists. Nossell boldly refuses to comply, even as he advances in his wheelchair between flanks of soldiers. While he had been apprehensive about the trip from the start, this display of moral fortitude cements Nossell as the film’s contrarian. Brügger misses an opportunity here to see what would happen if he, too, had become defiant at such a public event. He was presumably (and justifiably) nervous that all of his footage would have then been confiscated.
There is something intrinsically interesting about a film that was shot in cloistered North Korea, just as a film about Yale’s Skull and Bones society would be worthy of note. The urban streets, seen from the window of a van, are totally deserted. Brügger explains the lack of any advertisements is due to the alleged “socialist” government. While it is somewhat disappointing that the film was not even more of a revealing exposé on the government’s deplorable human rights record, had Brügger et al pushed their luck any further, they may have had all of their footage confiscated…or ended up in a labor camp.official film site * trailer * buy it (n/a)
Trivial Tidbits:
- Won Best Foreign Documentary at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival
- Won Best Nordic Documentary at Nordisk Panorama 2009
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