Beyond Utopia movie review & film summary (2023) – Roger Ebert

We dwell in a world of plentiful magnificence and unspeakable horror. We are able to understand its myriad options to a sure extent partly as a result of we’re permitted to. One of many locales of horror on our sphere is the nation of North Korea, dominated over by an authoritarian dictatorship that doesn’t permit its citizenry entry to any data or leisure aside from that which the federal government strictly sanctions. The state of affairs is such that defectors from that nation, upon arrival in South Korea—one of many solely locations in Asia that takes in such refugees—North Koreans are subjected to a prolonged spherical of what can solely be known as deprogramming. Throughout this time, they be taught, as an illustration, that Kim Jong Il is just not a deity.

Directed by Madeleine Gavin, “Past Utopia” is a bracing and ceaselessly jaw-dropping have a look at, firstly, the discontented individuals of North Korea who try defections doggedly. It’s a harder journey than you’d in all probability think about. The demilitarized zone that separates North Korea from South is actually impassable. So, would-be defectors have to go north into China. At which level, they’re caught and despatched again to their nation to face torture and doubtless execution. Or they’re picked up by predators who promote the ladies into intercourse work. Or they’re dealt with by brokers who will assist them negotiate a trek by way of central China to Thailand or one other province, the place they will then be transported to South Korea for a value.

A title on the film’s opening stresses that the footage recorded by a number of tried defectors, together with the Ro household, whose by way of line is adopted by the film, is the true stuff. There aren’t any recreations or dramatizations. Neither is that the case with archival footage of precise executions. It’s terrible stuff.

Different options of the image embrace interviews with Lee Heyeon-Search engine optimization, the creator of The Woman with Seven Names, who now works as a human rights activist. One other story of defection follows Soyeon Lee, who’s making an attempt to assist her son, who has lengthy been caught within the North on account of his youth and his father, get all the way down to the place she is. On this effort, she is helped by Seungeun Kim, a pastor who works with the usually predatory “brokers” within the North to deliver as many defectors down as he’s ready.

Gavin additionally gives a pocket historical past of North Korea, a vexed state if ever there was one. The film claims that Kim Il Sung, the ostensible “founder” of the North Korean state and a favourite of Stalin, barely even spoke Korean when he started working the nation. (Different accounts dispute this.) As soon as the USSR collapsed, financial damage for the nation was imminent. Famine and hunger ensued as additional Kims pursued WMD applications to maintain themselves propped up. On a regular basis, the state’s wicked chokehold on the populace grew extra deranged.