Gulag Kingdom

Just when North Korea couldn't possibly provoke more condemnation, along comes Kimjongilia to pile it on.

Documentarian Nancy Heikin just wanted to see Japan with her husband, who was attending a human-rights conference, but ended up spending seven years recording the testimony of escapees from the brutal Pyongyang regime. To be seen at October's Pusan International Film Festival and released in South Korea afterward, Kimjongilia — the title is taken from the name of a begonia cultivated in honor of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il — is a harrowing night at the movies. (See pictures of the rise of Kim Jong Il.)

But there may be too much flowery elaboration here, too, leaving this real-life horror film with ethical questions that linger as much as the North's rotten scent. While some of the subjects have reason to desire anonymity, most are filmed jerkily at such an unnaturally close range — a teary eye here, trembling lips there — that viewers cannot assess the whole of their humanity or believability. In order to "let emotions resonate," says the filmmaker, she intercut interpretive dancers in Korean garb with scenes of barbed wire and chilling landscapes. Playing off kitsch paeans to North Korea's Dear Leader, Heikin adds, "the whole film sort of went operatic." Ominous music in the repetitive manner of Philip Glass underscores, and ultimately overplays, the film's stories. (Read "North Korea: The Coldest War.")

Similar difficulties have arisen ever since Michael Moore and Errol Morris popularized documentary by stretching its boundaries. Can manipulation of truth best be exposed through manipulation of emotions? Do humanitarian ends justify all cinematic means? Asian audiences will have to decide for themselves if propaganda is best countered by playing it straight.

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