Tribeca - Yodok Stories
So I had absolutely no recollection of what this film was about when I walked in. That’s actually not that uncommon for me towards the end of the festival. Between seeing movies, running over Manhattan, and doing code development in my spare time my brain is pretty fried. But it was nice to be able to see the film without any preconceptions at all. Yodok Stories is a documentary about a musical production that was done in South Korea (the musical has the same name as the film) about the concentration camps in North Korea. The issues of North Korean concentration camps, where over 3 million ‘class enemies’ have been killed, is something largely ignored in South Korea and the rest of the world. The director of this documentary (a Polish film maker) and the director of the musical in South Korea (an escapee from a concentration camp) decided to make the musical to call attention to the issue in South Korea and make the film to call attention to it around the world. The film intercuts the rehearsals and performances of the musical with interviews of seven camp survivors who later escaped from North Korea. The stories they tell are harrowing, revealing the almost unspeakable suffering that has been inflicted on these people and their families. Beatings, rape, executions, starvation, the litany reminds us of the terrible things that people can be trained to inflict on each other. The musical itself brings to mind a modern, electric version of Le Mis, though most likely without the small amount of happiness that that show allows it characters. The combination is both visually stunning and emotionally shocking. This is an amazing documentary, mixing the power of song and spectacle with the human suffering that inspired it. Five out of five.