[Marxism] North Korean movies

[Louis Proyect]

When I received an invitation from the Korea Society in New York to 
attend a 4-part screening of North Korean films, I jumped at the 
opportunity for multiple reasons. To begin with, I am a huge fan of 
Korean movies, admittedly those that come from the south exclusively. As 
a relic of the cold war, North Korean movies–like Cuban cigars–are hard 
to come by. I assumed that they would be much different than the deeply 
ironic and alienated South Korean movies that I had become devoted to, 
but was curious to see whether the national culture that had been 
developing for millennia could still be detected in the dogmatically 
Marxist north.

While many of the finest South Korean movies are unavailable on home 
video, you can rent “Save the Green Planet” from Netflix, which 
summarizes the movie thusly:

"Believing that aliens in human form are systematically destroying the 
planet and all humankind, Byung-gu sets out to capture an alien leader 
and force him to confess. Because all the aliens look like humans, 
Byung-gu makes an educated guess and kidnaps the head of a chemical 
company."

Now, how can you resist such a movie!

I also wondered if North Korean movies would give me insights into one 
of the two remaining socialist countries in the world, giving the word 
socialist its broadest interpretation of course. As a long time 
supporter of the Cuban revolution, my attitude toward North Korea was 
probably like most leftists. We did not want to see North Korea 
victimized by economic sanctions or military attack, but there was 
little to identify with in a society that was bound together by an odd 
combination of 1930s style Stalinism and centuries old Confucian beliefs.

full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2009/06/03/north-korean-movies/