…so wait a minute. Someone ripped the opening beats from Fahrenheit 911 and called it a "North Korean documentary" and people bought it? …when the North Koreans make videos like this? Gotta say - I've seen maybe five documentaries on North Korea and this is the first I've heard of it.
I'm a bit of a North Korea buff, the idea that a society like that can even exist as such is simultaneously fascinating and abhorrent, but I'd only learned of this film a few weeks ago so it's new to me as well. I'm not sure what their aim was in labeling their film as "North Korean," maybe garnering more publicity? Here's a link to an interview with one of the filmmakers: http://www.indiewire.com/article/so-what-happens-when-you-ma... A quote, " I set about collecting footage -- I use snippets of Michael Moore's films. What's going to happen when they find out? Am I going to get sued, or get a pat on the head? In Michael Moore's case, it's a pat on the head. As for getting sued… First of all, I don't own anything. What are they going to sue me for? Second of all, If Paris Hilton or Tyra Banks sues me, it's publicity I couldn't pay for."
Man, what a douche. "No one has ever done this before, there's no precedent" - well, other than that whole Orson Welles thing. Or the entire genre of Alternate Reality Gaming. This stuff really grinds my gears - by saying "here's my idea of North Korean propaganda presented as factual North Korean propaganda so that I can make a callow commentary on my understanding of Western media" they're denigrating real North Korean propaganda, which is far more insightful, far more interesting and has a lot more to say about us than some fucking Kiwi's interpretation of the problem. There's a great series of cartoons available from Netflix called Animated Soviet Propaganda. There's an easy four hours of it. I found them fascinating - the criticisms leveled by the USSR against the West were not what we'd been led to believe. A lot of them hit home. I think it's far more important to have that discussion than some dipshit who can't tell a story without an alternate framing device. 'cuz really, that's all it is. It's an old storyteller's trick: when your core story is weak, wrap it in a frame that elevates the message. When all you're doing is recutting Michael Moore films to say something about "media" you're not being interesting, you're being derivative.