People Are the Sky

Filmmaker Dai Sil Kim-Gibson's eye-opening documentary presents an alternative (some might cynically say “alternative facts”) look at the pariah nation of North Korea—a country that Kim-Gibson migrated from to America as a young war refugee in the 1950s. Here, she is allowed to return and film in Pyongyang, albeit under the close supervision of ominously ever-smiling, starchy government agents, who forbid her from even asking schoolboys if they have girlfriends. Yet she still puts a sympathetic face on North Korea, which she claims modernized and grew in positive ways under the Kim dynasty of rulers (three generations of absolute dictators, so far), whom the public still revere as liberators from the evil empires of Japan and the USA. Washington, DC, the film claims, cared nothing about democracy in South Korea, only strategic military bases, and thus has backed unpopular, repressive regimes in Seoul. Any assertions that North Korea is equally militaristic and bellicose are ignored or whitewashed behind scenes of cheerful comrades, young and old, who are determined to carry on, hoping that as a “one blood” people they may someday reunite with the south. While some viewers may be skeptical of Kim-Gibson's upbeat take, this contrarian perspective makes for an interesting documentary on a subject that is very timely. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (C. Cassady)