Kingjongilia: North Korea's Undeniable Hell

When OJ Simpson was acquitted of murder charges, it seemed only a video of the actual murder would have convinced the out-of-touch jurors of his brutal crime. Kimjongilia, the new documentary directed by N.C. Heikin, is enough proof-on-film to convict North Korea's leader Kim Jong Il of mass murder, terrorism, and sadistic insanity.

Like Chaplin's exposure of the holocaust in The Great Dictator, Kimjongilia forces us to face one man's deadly hell through his victim's blood and tears. The documentary mixes victims' first-person tales with cold facts to lay bare the hell behind the rhetoric of North Korea. Darfur has been a pet cause of celebrities for months and months. With Kimjongilia, North Korea is another atrocity for even the most naïve to add to their list.

The documentary filmed almost entirely in South Korea exposes the inexplicable insanity of hate, abuse, repression, megalomania, and greed. North Korea abhors its own. Most of Kim Jong Il's victims suffer in camps because of his policy to imprison three generations of the family of anyone who does ill against the regime.

Humanity is a brutal force. Leaders need to take us to more evolved destinations. In Kim Jong Il's case, evolution is finding the next best way to make dissenters, or anyone his command chooses, suffer. Kimjongilia peels back the layers of rhetoric exposing the raw criminal minds running one of the world's most outrageously frightening countries.

I suspect if nothing else, we can learn that history - and dictators - will always repress the weakest and capitalize for their own demented greed. With Adolf Hitler so close in history's rearview mirror it's sad to note how quickly another lunatic rose up to humanity's low.

Kimjongilia closes today, 20 August at the IFC Center in Manhattan at Sixth Avenue and West Third Street. 212-924-7771

 

Comments

[BassguyGG]

10:51 AM on 08/21/2009

North Korea has been on my radar for a long time. They are IMHO the world's most evil regime, and a nuclear power to boot! They must be watched closely and contained. One of these days they'll launch a missle that WORKS, then we're really going to be in trouble! Imagne, for example, Kim Jong-Il threatening to launch a nuclear missle at Japan. As one of their client states China alternately loosens and tightens the leash, as suits their purposes.

The "Hermit Kingdom" is so isolated from the rest of the world that any rumor or conjecture that emerges is taken for fact. Reports of monstrous meth labs, unfettered by any government interference seem credible. More believable reports, from cooberating sources, depict it as a "Prison Nation," in which prison camps are one of their biggest industries. There are satellite pictures of prison camps the size of Detroit. All these poor souls provide a huge source of slave labor for the Regime. I have long suspected that at least some of the goods you see in Wal-Mart labeled "Made in China" are actually manufactured in North Korea by slave labor.

The public at large and our goverment need to pay more attention to North Korea. Failure to do so may be catastrophic.

[mainemichael]

10:18 AM on 08/21/2009

Re the Simpson tria - In the black community the saying is "the cops framed a guilty man." It was the framing, not the murder, that was judged by the jury. There was jubilation after the decision not because Simpson was free but because the tactics of the LAPD had been exposed.

Re Chaplin's 'Great Dictator' - it was a pre-war spoof of Hitler, nothing to do with the Holocaust.

This film 'Kimjungilia' may well be good but I have no faith in the intelligence of this article's authors.

[LMPE]

08:31 PM on 08/20/2009

And George W. Bush is a saint?

[janellrcarter1]

09:00 AM on 08/20/2009

A recent book, "Anatomy of a Trial" by Jerrianne Hayslett, will give you more insight into what was going on behind the scenes with everyone involved with the Simpson murder trial, including the jurors, and the synergistic effect everyone had on everyone else.