Beyond Utopia

The way out of North Korea is not across the border but all the way around the country. Those who leave cross first into China, then go down through Laos and Vietnam into Thailand, and are sent from there to South Korea. The route is thousands of kilometres and at every step there is a broker who wants paying. Pastor Kim Sung-eun has run this network for years. The documentary follows two cases: a family of five sets out with two small children and a grandmother in her eighties, while a woman tries to get her son out and the news stops coming. Madeleine Gavin directs. Kim Sung-eun, the journalist Barbara Demick and people who left the country earlier speak in it. It is an American production. Much of the escape was filmed on phones by the brokers themselves; the footage in the documentary is not reconstruction. The matter it treats is the price; getting out is not a decision but an account to be settled, and every broker wants his share. The film never leaves the family alone during the journey and the danger stays concrete throughout. In describing life inside the country the documentary uses footage shot in secret. The narrative does not carry the two stories equally; the second is shorter and ends harder. The film offers no political analysis and stays entirely with the people. The pastor's own past is inside the story and why he does this work is explained. The ending closes both cases and one of them does not end well. Its limit is tension; the narrative is suffocating, the danger real, and it is hard to watch. Who it is for: viewers who like documentaries that follow real events. Who it is not for: it is tense, heavy, and the ending bitter.