Red Utopia, North Korea
Yannis Kontos
Polaris / Deadline
North Korea is the most isolated country on the planet. Its historic moniker, the “Hermit Kingdom”, now seems more apposite then ever. Well hidden behind the walls of a strict Communist regime is based on the total subjugation of its people. This photographic documentary has managed to “escape” from censorship. These images are rare since they have managed not to pass through the “filtering sieve” of the regime. Fugitives, they provide their own answers to the “major riddle” of Asia and shed some light on this country, which, today, has passed successfully its first nuclear test, is at the focus of publicity. Introvert and particular North Korea lives in an absolutely singular world where time has frozen. To the eyes of the foreign visitor the whole country lives in anachronism, which is exactly the opposite from the image that its Stalinist leadership strives to pass through. Within its personal life spectrum extending from the declarations that the country possesses nuclear weapons to the trucks equipped with loudspeakers playing all over the capital Pyongyang at the tune of marches North Korea gives the impression of a warrior punching one’s own chest.
Preview
From when the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was formed in 1948, the Stalinist-type regime has imposed an authoritarian ideological structure upon the people. The Korean War, the final and most deadly conflict in the Cold War, ended in 1953. The armistice between North and South that followed remains until today very fragile. Kim Il-sung´s country, forces citizens to live under the dictations of “Ju-che”, the social dogma that replaced Marxist ideology and orders the people to be self-sufficient. North Korea, the only country of actually existing socialism on the planet today is a forbidden destination for foreign reporters. It is visited every year by 1,000 westerners only, chosen from different countries. I visited the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea two times as a member of a small group of “global” tourists and I stayed in the country for seventeen days. On my trip, I had the opportunity to travel also in the countryside, which I hadn’t seen any pictures since then and I found it very important for real life scenes. It took me more than three years to find the way to visit North Korea and all my attempts to get a journalistic visa failed several times. The shooting of this feature was conducted under the strict supervision of three people designated by the regime, who maintained total control of my attempts to photograph the aspects of every day life in North Korea. From the first moment I arrived in North Korea I had the strong feeling that I was watching a huge performance and that all the citizens I saw were part of it. Almost 80% of my pictures were taken in secret using several different methods and trying not to draw the attention of my minders. Frequently acting and feeling like a “spy”, using my camera’s self timer and most of the times shooting without looking at the viewfinder, even from inside a bus or a train, I tried to catch the mood of the country and little by little I collected enough material for a story. Every night, I was downloading my pictures in secret to my mp3 player unbeknown to my roommate. In DPRK use of the cameras causes the majority of problems. Photographic and video equipment are very restricted. Professional cameras are not allowed as well as lenses over 150mm, video cameras, computers and mobile phones. For that reason, I had with me two small cameras, one digital and one analog, both functioning very silent. Most of the times they were hidden in my bag and I was able to take them out freely only when I was in a sightseeing location. Although, even in front of the Great Leader statue, where we were obliged to bow, a North Korean guide defined how the monument had to be photographed: “When you take photographs of the statue of Kim Il-sung you must include it all in the picture, no side pictures, no pictures from behind”. In conclusion, I would say that my story reveals how a country, which recently announced to the World that it has a nuclear arsenal, presents itself to the camera through staged events based on a propaganda scenario using carefully chosen leading performers.
Yannis Kontos
