Comrade Kim Goes Flying

Well HERE'S something unique! This is the first Western-financed fiction feature film (please excuse the alliteration) to come out of North Korea. Submitted by three countries: Belgium, the UK and North Korea, it also sports three directors: Anja Daelemans, Nicholas Bonner and Gwang Hun Kim. Our 2013 Seattle Film Festival Audience found this diverting and fun.

With bright color-washed visuals and unrelenting optimism, we are treated to the story of a precocious little girl who wants to fly; her mother encourages her dream. Ten years later, with her illusion still driving her, she takes a quick trip to Pyongyang to see the circus before beginning her profession as a coal miner. Her idol is retiring from her high-flying career as a trapeze artist and our audacious girl insists on auditioning. Problem is, she has acrophobia and didn't know it.

Going home in defeat, she now works with an attractive group of men and women (I kept expecting them to burst into song!) who love and support her. Through travails and hard work, we are reminded that her efforts are for the common good, not for the individual. The propaganda is so liberally laced into the dialogue the audience began chortling. We love our happy heroine with her perfect teeth, her cheery attitude and that adorable little smudge of coal dust on her flawless cheek, so we just KNOW we can expect a happy ending.

We left with goofy smiles on our faces.

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This terrific trailer is provided by SIFF:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6VQbagojN0
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