The Red Chapel
Melbourne International Film Festival, 25/07/2010
Status: Behind by 20 films
Mads Bruger, a man with a no real plan but to expose North Korea as evil in some way, finds two Danish-Korean comedians - including Jacob who is mentally and physically handicapped - to perform the world’s worst show in a cultural exchange to North Korea. Roll camera and see what happens.
Have you ever watched a YouTube clip of four year old North Korean children performing? There’s little more effecting than the terror and mania in the children’s eyes above their perfect, never slipping smiles.
Bruger captures that and much much more in The Red Chapel as he documents what he sees and also how it effects the Danes, each in a different way. Jacob particularly has a complex response to the dictatorship - especially knowing that North Korean handicapped children are often killed in their infancy.
I came away sure of nothing about this strange, powerful, but funny film, except for the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach and a profound sense of just how complicated both people and evil can be.
