Australian
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an NFSA website

Pyongyang Diaries (1997)

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clip Inside the 38th parallel education content clip 1, 2, 3

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

Clip description

At Panmunjom, the Joint Security Area of the DMZ or Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea, soldiers from both sides silently face-off against one another while tourists and journalists look on. A North Korean officer expresses his feelings about the role of the United States in interfering in Korea’s affairs and their actions within the South Korean side of the DMZ. He is also curious about what the South Korean side tells the people entering the DMZ – how do they instruct tourists or media to act, what do they say about the North Koreans, and can you take photos? From the South side of the DMZ, a man takes a photograph of Hoaas across the demarcation line.

Curator’s notes

by Poppy De Souza

Hoaas has stated that one of her motivations in making this film was to humanise the country’s people, well aware that media portrayals of the North Koreans tended to demonise them on the basis of its leadership. In this clip, we glimpse a moment where the party line gives way to human curiosity when the North Korean officer timidly asks the filmmaker about her experience of entering the DMZ from the South side. Later in the film, on the South side of the DMZ, American tour guides gives tourists a slightly different account of North-South relations. Hoaas shows that the story changes slightly depending on the storyteller.

Teacher’s notes

provided by The Le@rning FederationEducation Services Australia

This clip shows Panmunjon, the Joint Security Area (JSA) of the Demilitarized Zone between North Korea and South Korea. Footage inside the JSA shows a photographic display including a photograph of the North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. Also displayed is a copy of the 1953 Armistice Agreement. A North Korean soldier talks about US interference in Korea’s affairs and later asks the filmmaker, Solrun Hoaas, what instructions she was given by the South Koreans at the JSA. Outside the JSA, a South Korean soldier is seen photographing Hoass.

Educational value points

  • This clip is a rare insight into the North Korean side of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), which divides the Korean Peninsula roughly in half along the 38th parallel. The 38th parallel was the original boundary between the southern US-occupied areas and the Soviet-occupied northern regions after the Second World War. The DMZ was created in 1953 after an armistice was signed to end the fighting in the Korean War (1950–53) without either side surrendering.
  • The DMZ is a symbol of the enduring hostilities and mistrust between North and South Korea that continue to this day. Although a Westerner herself, the filmmaker is photographed by the South Koreans on suspicion of being a North Korean sympathiser. Despite the display of a bound copy of the Korean Armistice Agreement of 1953, North and South Korea are technically still at war since the armistice has never been followed by a peace treaty.
  • Indicating the tense military stand-off between North and South Korea, the DMZ, 248 km long and 4 km wide, is one of the world’s most heavily fortified borders, protected by landmines, bunkers, weapons and barbed wire. The North Korean soldier in the clip accuses the USA of breaching the DMZ by stockpiling weapons there, thus forcing the North Korean Government to withdraw recognition of its demilitarised status. Since 1953 there have been several violent clashes.
  • One of Hoaas’s stated aims in making the film was to humanise the North Koreans, who are so often demonised because of the actions of their dictator leader. Here she achieves this humanisation by allowing the North Korean soldier to explain his hostility to the USA and also to reveal his curiosity about the instructions given to Hoass by the South Koreans. He may have felt comfortable speaking so openly because the filmmaker was Australian rather than American.
  • The clip illustrates that the DMZ is more than just a geographical barrier between North and South Korea – it is the line between two quite different views of the world, communist and democratic. These different views are revealed in the anti-US opinions that the North Korean soldier expresses and in the strict instructions given to visitors from the South Korean side that they not show any disrespect to the North Koreans because of the risk of potential escalation.
  • While the distinctive blue United Nations buildings inside the JSA, or the so-called ‘Truce Village’, are the only area where the South and North Koreans stand face to face, they are a graphic symbol of the closed society of North Korea and its isolation from the outside world. Ironically the DMZ is also a popular tourist destination for people from the South Korean side.