UNDER THE SUN: a wackadoodle regime subverts its own propaganda

A scene from Vitaly Mansky's UNDER THE SUN, playing at the 59th San Francisco International Film Festival, on April 21 - May 5, 2016.
UNDER THE SUN.  Photo courtesy of San Francisco Film Society.

The subversive documentary Under the Sun is a searing insight into totalitarian North Korean society, all from government-approved filming that tells a different story than the wackadoodle dictatorship intended.

The North Korean regime gave filmmaker Vitaly Mansky permission to film the story of a young girl who is training to take part in one of North Korea’s ritualized propaganda spectacles – when children “join” the Korean Children’s Union on the birthday of the current Supreme Leader’s father.  The script and the filming locations were all assigned by the North Korean regime and all film reviewed by their censors.  But Mansky was able to conceal and preserve the outtakes – and those moments are devastatingly revelatory about life on North Korea.

What we see is a grim society, virtually devoid of vibrancy and joy.  Families are posed briefly mechanically and unsmilingly for ritual family photos in front of flower-bedecked giant portraits of the Leaders.  The streets are drab and empty of vehicle traffic even at rush hour.  Mansky shows us surreptitious glimpses of his minders and even of boys raiding garbage cans.  There’s a lot of regimentation depicted in Under the Sun and lots of people drearily filing to and fro.  Sometimes it gets tiresome – but that’s the point.

Everyone is conscripted to perform and watch phony staged spectacles of the grandest scale.  The rapturous crowds shown on TV contrast with the stoic crowds forced to view the televised events.  North Korea must have the world’s most professional event planners per capita.

Most chillingly, we see a class where 6-year-olds are taught to hate Japanese and Americans.  This appears to be a scene that the North Koreans INTENTIONALLY included in the movie.

The beautiful irony of Under the Sun is that, in trying to tell a story about the best of their society, the North Koreans actually reveal their worst.  I saw Under the Sun earlier this year at the 59th San Francisco International Film Festival.  Under the Sun opens July 29 at the Lee 4-Star in San Francisco.