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Pyongyang Diaries (1997)

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clip The Great Leader education content clip 1, 2, 3

Original classification rating: PG. This clip chosen to be G

Clip description

At a celebration at Kim Il Sung Square for the founding day of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (the DPRK or North Korea), a woman speaks to camera about her happiness and her devotion to the Great Leader, the late Kim Il Sung. Filmmaker Solrun Hoaas visits the Kumsusan Memorial Palace – Kim Il Sung’s former residence – where thousands of Koreans pay their respects to the Great Leader whose embalmed body lies on display.

Curator’s notes

by Poppy De Souza

Hoaas is restricted in her coverage of North Korea, but is able to subtly tell her story through what is not shown and through her personal voice-over narration. The North Koreans she interviews are often cautious and at times appear to be simply toeing the party line – it is unclear whether the woman in this clip is presenting a public face to the camera or whether she believes the things she says. This ambiguity runs throughout the film and tells its own story of restriction and censorship.

Teacher’s notes

provided by The Le@rning FederationEducation Services Australia

This clip shows two visits by filmmaker Solrun Hoaas to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, after the death of Kim Il Sung in 1994 and again in 1996. At a celebration in Kim Il Sung Square of the founding day of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), a Korean woman speaks of her devotion to Kim Il Sung. Hoaas narrates her own visit to the Kumsusan Memorial Palace, Kim Il Sung’s former residence. Here North Koreans openly display their grief while lining up to pay their respects to the ‘Great Leader’, whose embalmed body lies on display.

Educational value points

  • This clip reveals the extent of the ‘cult of personality’ surrounding North Korea’s communist leader Kim Il Sung (1912–94), which allowed him to rule unchallenged for 46 years. A totalitarian ruler, Kim Il Sung was referred to as the ‘Great Leader’ and even ‘Eternal Leader’. Reportedly the son of peasants, he was the first prime minister of the newly formed DPRK from 1948 until 1972 and was then president from 1972 until his death.
  • The clip shows the ways in which a cult of personality and a repressive regime can exert power over people’s imaginations and behaviour. This is evident in the expressions of joy and reverence at the celebrations of the founding day of the DPRK, which marks the formation of the Workers Party of Korea on 9 September 1948, and the grief and hushed silence at the Kumsusan Memorial Palace.
  • The monumental works of art and architecture shown in the clip were commissioned to reinforce the notion of the ‘Great Leader’ and to suggest deity, an important element in the cult of personality. The giant bronze statue of Kim Il Sung with his arm raised upwards was erected in 1972. It is a grandiose public work that is 20 m high and stands in front of a 70-m mosaic of Mount Paektu, a sacred site for North Koreans.
  • The clip and its narration reveal the restriction and censorship that the filmmaker Solrun Hoaas faced in her coverage of the situation in North Korea. Some of the scenes shown here have been filmed from rooftops or car windows, suggesting that much of the filming was covert or low profile. This reflects the anti-Western paranoia of Kim Il Sung and his appointed successor and eldest son, Kim Jong Il, who has remained hostile to the USA and South Korea.
  • Despite severe food shortages caused by economic mismanagement, the lavish Kumsusan Memorial Palace, seen here, was refashioned at great expense after Kim Il Sung’s death by Kim Jong Il to house his father’s embalmed body as a permanent tribute to the Great Leader. As photography is not permitted inside, Hoaas describes the clothing requirements and the air ducts and automatic shoe-sole cleaner she had to pass through before she could view the body.
  • Hoaas (1943–) uses her own narrative in the form of a personal diary to fill in the gaps between the public face of North Korea that she was allowed to film and what she observed ‘behind the scenes’. The travelogue style allows Hoaas as narrator to act as ‘tour guide’ for the audience. For example, as Hoaas is unable to film inside the Palace, she overlays footage of the exterior of the Palace with a voice-over describing what happened when she went inside.