Reviewed
Oct 9, 2005
by Bill Humphries
Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea
4/5
I just read
Guy Delisle’s Pyongyang, a graphic memoir of the two months the French-Canadian animator spent in the North Korean capitol, supervising a team of animators at the Scientific and Educational Film Studio of Korea (when your production company’s too broke or cheap to outsource to Seoul.)
Delisle’s grey and black illustrations convey the banality of the North Korean capitol, with its grotesque tributes to the father/son dictators, empty tourist hotels, and abandoned construction projects.
As a filmmaker, he notices Kim Jong-Il’s propagandists bash the citizenry over the head with the Japanese Occupation during World War II — apparently the only legitimate film genre, and newsworthy story. It’s the bloody shirt the regime uses to justify itself. Delisle’s trip predates the World Trade Center/Pentagon attacks, so I found the constant referals to Japanese attrocities familiar. Imagine George Bush cranking the 9/11 dial up to 11.
He’s a little suprised to find Pyongyang’s a clean, yet underlit and underused city. He can’t travel outside, except on supervised trips to more monuments to Jong-Il and Il-Sung. The residents are handpicked for their loyalty, and Delisle can’t get a honest answer out of his minders.
You won’t find an answer to what’s really going on in North Korea in this book. Delisle says: To what extent can a mind be manipulated? We’ll probably get some idea when the country eventually opens up or collapses.
(p. 136) Reading it you’ll get a feel for what a horrid mess of a country North Korea’s become.
