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In its catalogue, a Czech travel agency offers a “journey into the unknown,” a tour of North Korea. This spring was the second time since 1990 that a group of Czech tourists set foot in the DPRK. The film follows twenty-seven Czechs who have decided to spend approximately 2,600 Euros on a sightseeing tour of a country which cultivates a cult of personality, maintains concentration camps for its citizens and doesn’t hide its development of nuclear weapons. Foreign visitors are only allowed a view of a carefully prepared illusion, thoroughly supervised by “guides.” What is more, the North Korean system is starkly reminiscent of our own past. Which emotions do our travellers experience: sympathy, nostalgia or, in contrast, happiness that “we already have this behind us?” How does a Czech person, after being accustomed to eighteen years of freedom and democracy, come to terms with the directives and restrictions of a totalitarian system? (official distributor synopsis)
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In North Korea, as the last oriental despot crossed with communist totalitarianism, filming a documentary is certainly not easy. Unless you decide to film a documentary about a group of Czech tourists discovering this forgotten and inaccessible country. Sometimes, it resembles a home video from a vacation, and sometimes travelmania. For those who do not have even basic information about North Korea, it is undoubtedly beneficial and somewhat shocking. Those who already have knowledge about the country and want to obtain more detailed information will have to rely on one of the foreign documentaries produced by the BBC or American stations. Nevertheless, there are shots of abandoned gigantic highways (in a country without private vehicles, they serve for quick military unit transfers) or monstrous monuments that far exceed similar works in the former Soviet Union, which reveal a lot about the regime and life in this insane country. Overall impression: 55%.
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The disgust at watching the trade union-big shot idiots from somewhere in Moravia is even greater than the North Korean absurdity of Stalinist proportions. An appalling testimony to the nature of Czechs, who tend to consciously bend over and present their assess to the concrete cocks of totalitarianism and admiringly accept ideological manipulation. It is sad that the only person who is able to show the greatest degree of distance is a tourist with a strong foreign accent. Instead, the film should have been titled Welcome amongst Czech Rednecks, because an ordinary redneck in a Potemkin village called the DPRK for tourists would grunt with bliss. Hopefully they also relocate there. The execution is average, but it does have a surprisingly relevant explanatory value.
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Photo © Aerofilms
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