Film Atlas (North Korea): The Flower Girl

Country: North Korea

Title: The Flower Girl / Kotpanum Chonio (1972)

The flower girl of the title, Koppun, roams about bucolic hillsides picking azaleas and singing about selling them to afford her mother’s medicine. At home she is beaten and berated by the family’s cruel landlady, while unsuccessfully trying to shield her blind sister, Sun Hi, from the realities of their plight. Their income is further reduced following the unjust arrest of her older brother. Koppun finally saves enough for the all-important medicine just in time for her mom to die, leaving the sisters orphaned. Koppun, thinking things can’t get any worse, wears out three pairs of straw sandals on the 175 kilometer journey to her brother’s jail only to be informed by a guard of his death. She almost hurls herself from a precipice in despair, but determines to carry on for the sake of Sun Hi. 

In her absence the landlady grew sick and delusional with guilt, and her henchmen superstitiously blame the blind girl, believing her possessed by her mother’s angry spirit, and lure her into the snowy mountains to die of exposure. Koppun finally snaps and has to be bound and gagged by the remorseless enemies of the people before the tide abruptly turns: her brother (escaped from prison) and sister (rescued by a kindly hermit) miraculously show up alive and they rally their fellow peasants to rescue Koppun, throw off the shackles of Japanese occupation and build a new society free of corruption, capitalism, and exploitation.

While The Flower Girl isn’t actually good, it is interesting. There are few examples of cinema under North Korea’s notoriously restrictive regime, and this one provides some insight into the now stone dead genre of Revolutionary Opera, which was once the sole theatrical option for almost a billion people. China’s “Eight Model Operas” (including the much more polished and entertaining Maoist ballet The Red Detachment of Women) from the Cultural Revolution are more famous, but North Korea produced five of their own, ostensibly written by supreme leader Kim Il-Sung himself, of which The Flower Girl was the most cherished. Revolutionary opera broke with traditional opera styles like Peking and Cantonese, and focused on pro-communist themes and proletariat collective heroes, often forgoing romance completely.

Flower Girl’s adaptation of its source opera is more melodramatic than melodious, with short solo musical numbers doled out at irregular intervals. The libretto consist of simplistic emotional sentiments (although is that really so different from opera and even pop music anywhere?) that, though repetitive and predictable, are sung soulfully and with talent by lead actress Hong Yong-hee. She was honored on the 1 won North Korean banknote until it was made obsolete by hyperinflation in 2009. However, despite the sympathetic central performance, the story of an innocent young girl toiling and suffering until final redemption is a little too familiar and far too drawn out. The propagandistic agenda busts in at the last minute too jarringly for even the most receptive audience to find convincing. 

It is interesting to note that, until the final act, this could almost be a film from anywhere. In individualism-oriented America Koppun would either be saved by a dashing lover or by her own pluck and resourcefulness and in your typically dour European art film she’d simply be left to die tragically. Perhaps it’s just a minor tweak of political convention that The Flower Girl instead ends with her being blissfully whisked away by a spontaneous nationalist peasant revolt. At least, as the film descends deeper into mediocrity and narrative nonsense, the camerawork actually gets more interesting, with some vintage in-camera split-screen and several touching snow-laden tableaux.

Since I'm sure when else I'd be able to bring it up, I can't resist mentioning some 'alternative viewing' that, though less representative of North Korea's play at critical recognition, is arguably a lot more fun: Pulgasari. Pulgasari is a schlocky monster movie with a backstory as strange as the film itself. South Korea's A-list director Shin Sang-ok and his ex-wife were kidnapped by North Korean dictator and self-professed fan Kim Jong-Il in 1978 and, after four years in prison, were forced to make a series of propaganda films to promote North Korea abroad. Before he escaped to Vienna Song-ok created 7 films, including the rarely-seen Kaiju (giant monster) sci-fi parable that is Pulgasari. It tells of a dying prisoner who uses the last of his rice ration to mold a dinosaur doll that, after being given life by a drop of blood, begins ravenously munching metal. Like capitalism, Pulgasari grows rapidly and helps overturn fuedalism, but continues consuming well beyond its country's resources and finally turns on the working class it once swore to protect. An important lesson for us all.

My Favorites:

Pulgasari

The Flower Girl

Sundance 2010

Sine I've not posted this year, I've let slip the chance to have topical discussions about the 2009 year-in-review, various Oscar-related issues and my experience at Sundance. But to assuage my guilty conscience I will briefly summarize the latter.

Katie and I stayed in the mountains next to Salt Lake City with our good friend Exactly Why at her gorgeous home and got to try a lot of local cuisine. We made it to 6 movies, already ably reviewed over at Exactly Why's blog. I'll give a quick rundown in my own words:

The Red Chapel - A subversive documentary about a 'spastic' Danish comedy team that travels to North Korea for a tense and awkward cultural exchange. The film says as much about the ethics of the comedians and film crew as it does about the country and ultimately runs the gamut from outrageous to depressing. Wry and thought-provoking, I can't fault Sundance for awarding this their International Documentary award.

Obselidia - A gentle road-movie romance about a reclusive collector of obsolete things and a woman who runs a silent movie theater. While it was thankfully not overly-precious (like too many of the recent rash of 'quirky' indie hits), it can be a bit on the preachy side, though I felt its heart was largely in the right place. Great acting, a comfortable script and an assured pacing made this a very charming and worthwhile little film.

Enter the Void - Gaspar Noe (Irreversible) brings his latest experiment to its third audience (after controversial Cannes and Toronto screenings) and it is both his most abrasive and most visually daring yet. Enter the Void is told primarily from the drifting perspective of a drug dealer's disembodied soul seeking reincarnation as he shifts in and out of his past and the grim present of his sister's deteriorating life as a stripper in neon-lit eye-searing Tokyo. Noe's trademark whirling camera antics are impressive, and yet unpleasantly dizzying and ultimately tedious. Working with an interesting concept and no shortage of auteur flare, the film struggles to find somewhere to end and, after 155 minutes and half a dozen opportunities to walk away with a dignified finish, bellyflops into an audacious, ill-adviced and hilarious finale (think orgasms, CG and a verrry intimate POV). Noe came out afterwards and confessed that we weren't supposed to laugh. For all that, I kind of admire the film, in that no-holds noble failure type of way.

Incidentally, when asked during the Q&A about his next project, Noe shyly admitted it would be an out-and-out porno. He didn't sound like he was kidding. With Lars von Trier (Pink Prison), Steven Soderbergh (The Girlfriend Experiment), Crispin Glover (It Is Fine. Everything Is Fine), and Kevin Smith to name a few, there seems to be more of an uptick in serious artists interested in the subject matter than I can remember since P. T. Anderson's Boogie Nights .

Tucker & Dale vs Evil - A spot-on horror comedy that presents a common film scenario (teens on a campy trip beset by villainous locals) from the sympathetic side of the rednecks. Tyler Labine and Alan Tudyk (Firefly) are perfectly cast as two lovable hillbillies who rescue (not kidnap) a beautiful psych student and befriend her while her former pals get themselves killed with such persistence that Tucker and Dale believe them to be a violent suicide cult. The semi-gimmicky plot actually manages to sustain itself pretty well and the film earned constant laughs from me, my friends and the entire audience. It is actually more entertaining than most of the films it riffs on, such as Friday the 13th, The Hills Have Eyes, Wrong Turn and even Deliverance.

Buried - Ryan Reynolds wakes up in a coffin and soon receives a cell phone call that if he can't arrange for a million dollar ransom, he will be left to suffocate. The camera never cuts outside of his tiny confines, creating an incredibly tense and utterly claustrophobic nightmare scenario that manages to stay exciting during every minute of depleting oxygen. The films even manages a good deal of creative visual variety through changes in angle and light source; the yellow of a lighter's flame, the faded red of a flashlight, the cold blue of the cell phone, the eerie green of chemical glow sticks and the amble use of pitch black create a balance of mood and practicality. Though contrived, it is easy to overlook the weaker plot points. The film easily earns a spot amongst the great low budget horror films of the digital era.

Splice - Speaking of which, Vincenzo Natali, the Canadian wunderkind behind low-budget high-concept horror classic Cube, unleashes his new genetics-experiment-gone-wrong thriller. Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley play a pair of married researchers whose gene-spliced anti-body incubator becomes a beloved pet and eventually a surrogate child. The film plays like an even-more-allegorical modern-day Frankenstein where far more than just medical ethics gets ludicrously violated. The acting and effects are top-notch, but the script may be an acquired taste. Fans of early Cronenberg or anyone willing to mix parenting woes and childrearing psychology with science-fiction and horror conventions will certainly enjoy.

Overall Sundance was a wondeful experience and I felt like all the films we saw were either highly entertaining or at least very interesting. I hope to go again next year. Katie has recently moved out to Vernal, Utah (where there's a good chance I'll one day join her) so we may be "right next door" in the midwestern 3-4 hour sense.

SLIFF 2008 Coverage Part 1

Well, it's high time the SLIFF reviews started trickling out. Here's the first batch, and from here on out I'll try to keep them coming at a reasonably steady pace. But don't wait for me to filter through the roster: the festival continues and St. Louisians should take advantage! If you want to see where I'll be for the remainder of the festival, you can check out my calendar over at Highway 61, where I'll be cross-posting.

I'm already sensing that the festival has taken a lot of my advise from last, though probably not from me. There's a lot more late-night genre options and shorter intro commercials for one thing. More on that after the festival.

Title: Vanaja
Director: Rajnesh Domalpalli
Country: India
Score: 7.0
Review:
After already playing in almost every other festival in the world (it seems) and getting a DVD release, “Vanaja” finally made its way to St. Louis. It tells a the coming of age story of Vanaja in a rural Indian village, who hopes to overcome her poverty, low-caste status and poor prospects by learning traditional dance in the home of her rich landlady. While working as a servant girl, she wins the approval of the landlady and sets about becoming an accomplished dancer.

This familiar arc is soon disrupted both by her father’s increasingly lethal drunkenness and the arrival of the landlady’s attractive, politically ambitious son. Despite early flirtations, any chance of a storybook romance is foiled by age and class, resulting in a painful relationship that includes rape, a contentious pregnancy, blackmail and difficult choices about motherhood.

For some reason I felt hard to please while watching “Vanaja,” both during it predictable plucky-hero dances towards her dreams first half and it’s more complicated young-mother making tough decisions second half. Perhaps it’s because both plotlines are such perennial festival scenarios. Yet what they lack in originality they make up for in delivery. There’s a great deal of well-earned emotional moments and enough time and nuance to gather honest sympathy for Vanaja and her situation.

The acting, particularly the 15-year-old lead Mamatha Bhukya and Urmila Dammannagari’s curmudgeonly landlady, is where the film really shines. Director Domalpalli deserves credit for his unassuming sunlit photography, which captures the rustic dustiness and colorful highlights of rural India. Working on a small budget, the film nevertheless has just the right atmosphere to intensify the drama without overwhelming it.


Title: Interkosmos
Director: Jim Finn
Country: USA
Score: 4.0
Review:
Part of a double-feature by experimental director Jim Finn, “Interkosmos” is a mishmash of appropriated documentary footage transformed into a fictional history of a lost East German space program. A mixed crew from assorted communist nations attempts to establish mining and refueling stations on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, but spends most of their time chatting aimless by radio. Their greatest success is in positioning orbiting libraries of communist material, which later conspiracy theories suggest was the real mission goal all along. When the budget disappears, the manned ships go silent and the government covers up the program.

Finn’s premise and his unusual style of integrating archival footage with artificially-aged fiction are certainly interesting, but this first feature by the director suffers from a fatal lack of focus. Monologues about dolphins, minimalist space exercise routines, an all-girls Marxist hockey match, a hamster in a space suit, NASA videos of Earth and a lot more are loosely fitted into place, but they amount to a fairly arbitrary collection of things that Finn found amusing more than a story or even a compelling overview of a story (which is probably closer to his intention).

Even with the short ~70 minute run-time, the film feels far too long and drawn out. It’s hurt by a lack of editing discretion and abundant repetition, revisiting low-interest imagery with minor variations of what we’ve already seen and digested. The overextended intro and end credits are perhaps the clearest examples of indulging at the audience’s expense. Even the best set designs, like a spaceship cockpit and two moving models of the moon stations, are given too much time to sink in while we listen to mildly informative monotone voice-overs. The film is at its best when it plays the narration for bone-dry humor, as in the radio transmission conversations with their blend of bored small talk and Marxist rhetoric.


Title: The Juche Idea
Director: Jim Finn
Country: USA
Score: 6.0
Review:
Much more successful than his previous film is Finn’s “The Juche Idea,” a rough retrospective of fictional propaganda films created by an enthusiastic North Korean director. The director once again appropriates a disparate assemblage of archival footage including media coverage of national celebrations, internal theatrical releases and corporate training videos.

Not only is it clear that Finn has matured as a director and polished his style since the former film, he also seems to have homed in on his strong suit: humor. Laughs are stitched from all sorts of unexpected resources, rather from juxtaposing Kim Jong-il's ideological tenets with laughably lame film clips, mocking language-training videos with badly green-screened backgrounds and heavily-accented ludicrous conversations or just from spouting inappropriately convoluted metaphors.

One still finds too much repetition, a lack of visual stimuli and the unsatisfying feeling that no cogent movie really forms from the individual scenes, but the pacing is more stable, the rhythm tighter and the themes better realized. For those who are interested, I’d recommend sampling this film first before giving “Interkosmos” a try.