The Red Chapel

Under the guise of comedy, using the name The Red Chapel, a Dutch documentary maker and two Dutch-Korean comedians go into North Korea to present a show and see the inside of North Korea for themselves.

This is not a comfortable movie. Everything is a front presented to give a particular vision (including that of the Danish themselves). Their comedy act is changed to fit Korea and the spastic Jacob gets sidelined.

More creepily, we see into the North Korean schools... now that isn't something that's comfortable to see, how the children are so compelled to behave in specified ways, all in the name of the glorious Dear Leader.

If they ever see this movie, or if any of them spoke Dutch... I don't think they'll be invited back, to say the least. (The movie is in Dutch, Korean and English, with the Dutch and English being subtitled, and only English being the common language between the groups.)

Watching this, I wonder what North Korea will be like when Kim Jong-Il dies... it will be "interesting times".

(Note, I'm using another documentary fest's trailer as the one DocNZ used was removed.)

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