MOVIE REVIEW
North Korea: Beyond the DMZ
By Deirdre Griswold
At last a movie has been made by a U.S. film
crew about North Korea that makes an effort to understand that
country, not just demonize it.
"North Korea: Beyond the DMZ" is a Third World Newsreel
release produced by J.T. Takagi and Hye Jung Park and edited by
Dena Mermelstein. The one-hour film has been screened twice in
New York theaters to capacity audiences, made up largely of
young Koreans, and will be seen soon in Philadelphia and Los
Angeles.
The film answers the Bush administration's charge that the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea is part of an "axis of
evil" by following the experiences of a young Korean-American
woman as she travels to the North in search of long-lost
relatives.
Like many young Koreans born in the U.S., she didn't even
know her father's family was from the North until recently.
Long years of harsh dictatorships in the U.S.-occupied South
and anti-communist persecution here had silenced a whole
generation.
Some 10 million Korean families were separated by the U.S.
war of 1950-53 against North Korea. The U.S. has refused to
sign a peace treaty ending the war, and nearly 40,000 U.S.
troops have occupied South Korea ever since, making these
separations permanent.
Most U.S. television and movie viewers, including South
Koreans who have settled here, have never seen what the people
of the North are like or heard their opinions about their
country. They haven't heard before what North Koreans have to
say in defense of their independent social system and their
leaders, who have resisted both Japanese and U.S.
imperialism.
Koreans here are particularly fascinated by the film's views
of Pyongyang, the beautiful, modern city that is the capital of
the North and was built up from the ashes of the war. Just to
possess a picture postcard of Pyongyang has been illegal in
South Korea under its anti-communist laws.
But those laws are crumbling. In South Korea today, the
sentiment for getting the U.S. troops out and reuniting the
country is stronger than it has ever been. The last two
presidents have had to pledge themselves to the goal of
reunification. But it is the popular movement that is firmest
in opposing Washington's threats to carry out military actions
against the North--this time using the North's nuclear program
as a pretext.
At this tense moment in Korean-U.S. relations, when many
fear that the Bush administration may have North Korea in its
gunsights next, this film is a welcome antidote to the
ignorance and misinformation spread by the U.S. corporate
media.
It opens many questions and will undoubtedly stir much
discussion in the Korean and U.S. movements for justice. The
film will be available for distribution as a video soon. Go to
www.twn.org for details.
Reprinted from the Jan. 8, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
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