The Red Chapel

Danish Title: Det Røde Kapel
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

Trivial Epilogue:

• "Sundance Film Festival follow up: THE RED CHAPEL"

Food, Inc.

Director: Robert Kenner

(2009)

What may be a more terrifying movie than the darkest of horror films is the documentary Food, Inc. - a portrait of the system of food production in America that has been shrouded in mystery. We have somehow become incredibly distant and unaware of something as imperative as the food we eat. Kenner did a great job bringing this dark issue to light without alienating his audience.

It’s unsettling to know how much has changed in the food production industry in the past 30 years alone. Today, we’re consuming corn that has been genetically modified and we’re eating meat from cloned animals. It's unclear what kind of long-term effect this will have on our health. If food producers continue to modify the way we have eaten for millennia, eventually we may not be able to turn back to the way things used to be. Massive conglomerates are controlling much of production, and they are manufacturing food in facilities that resemble factories more than farms. The conditions are inhumane for both the animals and workers. The fact that these companies refused the chance to appear on camera to stand up for themselves is a sure-sign that the film should be watched.

These massive corporations are not going to decide to change overnight. Change needs to happen on the federal level. While it may seem impossible to bring change to such a powerhouse of an industry, Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, points to the battle against tobacco as a model of how change can be accomplished.

If you follow the food chain back from those shrink wrapped packages of meat, you find a very different reality. The reality is a factory. It's not a farm - it's a factory. That meat is being processed by huge, multi-national corporations that have very little to do with ranches and farmers.

The one thing that everyone in this world has in common is that they have to eat, and this film challenges the eating habits of virtually all Americans. The fact that I was so apprehensive to watch this film is a testament to how powerful a message it holds. Before I watched it, I knew that it would have an effect on me. I thought it was a lose-lose situation; it was either going to push me to spend more money on organic meats or just make me feel terribly guilty every time I purchased a pound of ground beef at the Food Emporium. In the end, it left me inspired enough to get involved and it made me really eager for the fresh, independently-produced goods from the farmers’ market this summer.



official film site

Trivial Tidbits:

• McDonald’s is the nation's largest purchaser of beef, pork, potatoes, and apples
• 30% of the land in the US is used for planting corn
• Every day, 32,000 hog are killed in Smithfield Hog Processing Plant in Tar Heel, N.C (the largest slaughterhouse in the world)

The Cove

Director: Louie Psihoyos
(2009)

Every year, approximately 2,300 dolphins are brutally killed in a small, secluded inlet on the coast of Japan. The Cove is a documentary that examines these appalling executions. The film was screened at Tribeca's "Docs on the Shortlist" weekend film festival earlier tonight.

The inspiration for the film came from Richard O'Barry, the man who helped train the five dolphins who portrayed Flipper. O'Barry had an intimate relationship with dolphins, and eventually came to the realization that they were self aware. This epiphany led him to turn on the industry that he was such an influential part of, and fight against the captivity of dolphins.

Part of what makes The Cove such a strong film is that it touches on so many issues. Not only does it delve into the mass murder of the dolphins of Taiji, but it examines the dangers of mercury poisoning, the buying of votes by Japan in the International Whale Commission, and questions why the government of Japan has allowed these atrocities to occur.

Louie Psihoyos (right) and Fisher Stevens (center) spoke after the screening

The filmmaker is quite passionate about conservation. During the Q & A following the screening, Psihoyos, who was a photographer for National Geographic for 17 years, noted that he has a 100% electric-powered vehicle (somehow in a non-preachy manner, I might add) with a vanity plate that reads "VUS," representing Vehicle Using Sun (he pointed out that it's SUV in reverse). He felt that perhaps a more ominous issue than the one addressed in The Cove was the threat of global warming on plankton, which is responsible for 2 out of 3 breaths that we take. While it may not be as easily translated to film as the photogenic marine mammals, Psihoyos may turn his sights to the small drifting organisms for his sophomore release.

The Cove has already made a difference. There was recently a temporary ban on killing bottlenose dolphins in Taiji. With the recent release of the DVD (purchase it on Amazon), the film should reach a wider audience. The more people that watch the film, the stronger the opposition will become to these heartless fisherman. Psihoyos advised the Tribeca audience to use whatever platform is available to promote the film and push the agenda. So I say to you: watch the film (trailer is below), sign the petition, embrace the cause, and enlist your friends to fight against the brutal massacre of these incredible creatures.



official film site

Trivial Tidbits:

• Dolphins can hear frequencies ten times or more above the upper limit of adult human hearing, though it is believed that they lack a sense of smell