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N.Y. Times (Sort of) Reviews “Kimjongilia”

The reviewer, Mike Hale, dismisses the documentary “Kimjongilia” as the result of “a morbid obsession with Mr. Kim and the hellish country he oversees, shared by escaped North Koreans and Western filmmakers,” which is an attack on the film’s choice of subject matter, not its artistic merit. Hale begins his review, in other words, wishing that filmmakers would pay as little attention to this subject matter as the New York Times’s news bureaus and its editorial board have. Any judgment of the film’s quality is strictly an afterthought.

Speaking as an authority on this particular morbid obsession, it’s a sure thing that no one will ever diagnose the Times with it. The Times has distinguished itself among major U.S. newspapers for a nearly complete absence of reporting about North Korea’s death camps, famines, or the misery Kim Jong Il has inflicted on his subjects. Its North Korea coverage is easily the worst of all major U.S. newspapers. Worse than USA Today? Yes, even worse than that.

I haven’t actually seen “Kimjongilia” myself, so I won’t join the argument about the film’s artistic merits. I’ll simply observe that this very brief review hardly does that much, although its opening attack on the film’s choice of a topic reveals volumes about the reviewer’s political bias. Other reviews — not to mention the comments to Hale’s review — reached the opposite conclusion. These views, and the very fact of the film’s selection for Sundance, suggest that you might reach a different conclusion if you see “Kimjongilia” for yourself.

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  2. Excellent that the Times has an NK topic page, and thanks for pointing that. But I’m not finding anything about human rights or labor camps there. If I’m wrong, please point me in the right direction. It’s the coverage of this aspect of NK life with which Mr. Stanton takes issue.

  4. I’m going to watch it just as soon as one of the universities in Honolulu has a showing or it comes out on Netflix, hopefully through on-line viewing.

  5. This review reeks of art-snob pretention. To so pathetically gloss over the human rights disaster this portrays by trying to knock supferficial “artistic” merits shows that the reviewer is either a moron, delusional, or both. I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that the film critic knows little about North Korea – and with that said, I’m struck by the fact that he apparently wasn’t at all moved by the subject matter.

    I am also kicking myself for not realizing this was showing at the Boston Film Festival last spring.

  6. I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that the film critic knows little about North Korea – and with that said, I’m struck by the fact that he apparently wasn’t at all moved by the subject matter.

    Well, he was born in Seoul, so I’m not sure what his excuse would be for either. I think the “art-snob” comment sounds about right to me.

  7. Perhaps I’m from the Roger Ebert school of filmmaking, but there is a long backdoor point to all this though: I was having a conversation with someone in the entertainment industry who’s heavily involved with human rights. According to this person, we’ve reached an evolution in human rights marketing where simply “raising awareness” and putting together interview after interview does not do the trick. People have seen the Worldvision ads, the flies in the children’s faces. Blame it on the 24 hour news cycle, blame it on youth, blame it on the pervasive coverage we have on CNN, but merely presenting shock and guilt do not work any more.

    We’ve reached a point of this packaging where the message has to now not only be on point, but has to be poignant, has to ring true with the individual audience member, has to be compelling, has to be well packaged, and above all now, has to entertain. Films like Kimjongilia, Yodok Stories, On the Border, all are real stories, but to a lesser extent, fail to connect with audiences the way that other docs do: and I would argue it is because this “entertainment” factor is missing. Michael Moore’s documentaries may be full of ddong to many, but they reach a wide audience because they are entertaining (especially the earlier ones, such as Roger and Me)

    On this front, that is why a documentary like Seoul Train still “has it”: despite having been filmed years ago, it still resonates to this day, simply because it is poignant, it’s informative, it’s short and to the point, it personalizes the story, it shows us the failures and the risks, and is damn entertaining.

  8. I don’t agree with your criticism of Mike Hale, and invite you to re-examine the film review. If your interpretation of “morbid fascination” etc. was correct, then Mr. Hale would not have started the third paragraph with “These harrowing tales are reason enough to see the movie.” He would have written something like: “These overly dramatic stories aren’t the only reason to avoid the movie”.

    The “morbid fascination…[of] escaped North Koreans” is merely a restatement of the second paragraph’s “…can’t shake its hold on their imaginations. Trapped in webs of anger and anguish…” Many may find the phrase “morbid fascination” demeaning, but that is because we also use the phrase for so many sillier things; it’s not literally wrong.

    The “morbid fascination…[of] Western filmmakers” is an exaggeration of the artistic judgement in the third paragraph – that adding anything to the interviews detracts from from the movie. Variety disagrees, you are correct. And I would also agree that this exaggeration is lacking in taste. But Mr. Hale is not telling us that he disagrees with these movies being made; again: “These harrowing tales are reason enough to see the movie.”