Day: June 14, 2013

By Joe Bendel. As a child born into a life in North Korea’s prison camps, Shin Dong-huyk thought nothing was amiss when he witnessed the three hour beating of an eight year old girl caught with five grains of wheat in her pocket. Evidently Dennis Rodman, the regime’s newest apologist, has no problems with it, either. However, all viewers of good conscience will be horrified by the stories Shin and two former DPRK officials have to tell in Marc Wiese’s documentary Camp 14—Total Control Zone, which screens during the 2013 Human Rights Watch Film Festival.

That poor girl died from the injuries she sustained from her “teacher.” Her case is the norm rather than the exception. Children born to prisoners (because a guard either raped their mothers or arranged a coupling as a reward for heavy toiling) have a short life expectancy. Shin beat the odds surviving Camp 14 into his teen years, but at a price. At one point, Shin’s brainwashing led him to make a decision that still haunts him today.

Hyuk Kwon was a guard at Camp 22, where he tortured and executed prisoners on a daily basis. Oh Yangnam was a member of the secret police, who regularly rounded-up and interrogated suspects on the thinnest of pretexts. Both have defected to South Korea, yet they worry they might see some of the prisoners they once tormented should the two Koreas ever unify. Their accounts match Shin’s experiences, chapter and verse.

Through their testimony, sometimes illustrated by Ali Soozandeh’s stark animated sequences, Control conveys the breadth and depth of the Communist regime’s thought control. Clearly, any notion of human rights is absolutely foreign to North Koreans. Ostensibly, Control ends on an ironic note, with Shin expressing his ambivalence about the free South. Yet his remarks really prove just how profoundly broken he is as a human being.

Wiese has assembled a riveting examination of oppression and its lasting impact on the human psyche. While he maintains an intimate focus on his interview subjects, Soozandeh’s animation is grimly evocative, adding a truly cinematic dimension to the documentary.

This is a very good film, but also a very depressing one. The picture of North Korea that emerges is truly the closest thing on Earth to Orwell’s 1984—a dystopian state with complete disregard for its citizens’ well being. However, it points viewers towards Liberty in North Korea (LiNK), a rescue and advocacy organization Shin is affiliated with. Frankly, this is exactly the sort of film HRWFF needs to program more often (instead of Occupy Wall Street polemics). Highly recommended, it screens this coming Thursday (6/20) at the IFC Center and next Friday (6/21) at FSLC’s Francesca Beale Theater.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on June 14th, 2013 at 4:48pm.

By Joe Bendel. Evidently, Vitamin D is not a big priority in the provincial Muslim communities of southern India—women’s rights even less so. One prominent Tamil woman understands this from first-hand experience. For nine years, her family kept her locked away from the outside world until she finally consented to an arranged marriage. The poet-politician tells her story in Kim Longinotto’s documentary profile, Salma, which screens during the 2013 Human Rights Watch Film Festival.

The pre-teenaged Salma (as she is simply known) desperately tried to hide the onset of puberty, because she knew her parents would pull her out of school and sequester her until marriage. She actually valued learning, making her quite the problem child. She was also disinclined to marriage, holding out for as long as possible. Finally she acquiesced, only to find her circumstances largely remained the same. Only her jailers changed.

Secretly, at great risk of physical abuse or worse, Salma starting writing poetry, which a sympathetic family member furtively submitted to a publisher (not completely unlike Jafar Panahi’s This is not a Film, smuggled out of Iran in a cake). Her powerful verse became a sensation, scandalizing the village and outraging her family. However, it also made her a celebrity, forcing her in-laws to let her out into the world, setting the stage for an unlikely political career.

Salma is an eloquent advocate for reform and her experiences are almost unfathomable for the Twenty-First Century. She is well worth listening to, but Longinotto allows her to leave obvious 800 pound gorilla questions unanswered. Most notably, just about every viewer will wonder why she remains silent on the nature of the religion used to justify her oppression. In fact, she is still outwardly quite devout. Is it all for the sake of her political career? Longinotto never pushes her on the issue, despite all the fundamentalist misogyny expressed by her grown nephew, among others.

Nonetheless, reality speaks for itself in every frame of the film. Indeed, the implications of Salma’s personal history are inescapable. Longinotto nicely incorporates Salma’s verse, adding a literary dimension to the film. Informative and bravely intimate in a burqa-less way, Salma screens today (6/14) at the IFC Center and tomorrow (6/15) at the Francesca Beale Theater.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on June 14th, 2013 at 4:47pm.

By Joe Bendel. The classic 1980’s movie hero was a commando who could inexplicably bury himself in mud, yet spring up at exactly the right time to ambush an enemy army. Today’s prototypical protagonist is a man-child who tries to win back his elfin girlfriend by working in an organic food coop. How did we go so far wrong as a culture? Back in the ’80s, the best way to watch a bunch of crap blow-up was on VHS. It still is for some die-hards. Josh Johnson profiles the VHS tape and the people who love it in Rewind This, which screens during the 80’s themed Awesome Fest in Philadelphia.

There are scads of oddball films that were released on VHS, but have yet to get the DVD treatment. Partly this is because the big studios were late to the party (like they were right on time for the digital download thing), leaving the field open to bargain hunting independents. More importantly, the voracious demand of mom-and-pop rental stores across the country required a constant stream of new product, regardless of good taste or logic. Those zero budget wonders are a major reason why some collectors bitterly cling to their VHS tapes.

Johnson gives a good overview of VHS’s origins and its triumph over Betamax. While he covers the love affair between VHS and porn, he does not belabor the point, preferring to focus on the old school action and horror movies that became mass market commodities thanks to home video. In addition to a motley crew of blogger-collectors, Rewind features commentary from legendary grindhouse director Frank Henenlotter, Cassandra “Elvira, Mistress of the Dark” Peterson, Lloyd “Troma” Kaufman, David “The Rock” Nelson, and dudes from SXSW, Something Weird, Twitch, Severin Films, Cinefamily, and Alamo Drafthouse. There is also a Japanese contingent, including Shinji Imaoka, the director of Underwater Love, probably the most endearing Pinku Eiga film ever.

Rewind does not skimp on the vintage clips, reveling in the aesthetics of direct-to-video exploitation movies with lushly painted pre-Photoshop covers. Unfortunately, the not infrequent whining about big media corporations quickly grows tiresome. It is also rather off the mark. No distributors were bigger cutthroat capitalists than Golan-Globus, yet they brought us VHS milestones like the American Ninja franchise. Sadly, viewer tastes just shifted from red meat to vegan comfort food.

Despite the occasional eye-rolls, Rewind This offers some heartfelt nostalgia for some of the scrappiest films ever haphazardly released. Good, kind-of-clean fun overall, Rewind This! is recommended for all cult cinema fans when it screens Monday night (6/17) as part of Awesome Fest, which also totally deserves your support for their 30th anniversary screening of The Adventures of Bob & Doug McKenzie: Strange Brew on July 8th.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on June 14th, 2013 at 4:47pm.