At the beginning of 17 years, I also shouted that I would travel to DPRK, saying that I wanted to see the communist past that I didn't know. After being reminded: "The situation on the peninsula is unstable" and "Don't send foreign exchange to totalitarian countries", the trip still failed. Today, I heard that the school was broadcasting the documentary "Under the Sun" about North Korea, so I hurried to watch it. And I never thought that I, who was born at the tail end of the last century, could also see the confusion of my childhood and my youth.
I saw Zin-min who insisted on promising the teacher that he would be discharged from the hospital tomorrow for the rehearsal, and insisted on learning the rest of the dance steps for the collective good. "You just don't have the habit", "Now you give up, what if you have to learn more and more difficult?". Growing up, these two words rang in my ears again and again. They finally internalized my standard for myself, telling me in my darkest time: "If you can't even bear the current ordeal, how will you live in the future". This fall, I enrolled in a liberal arts college with "general education" and "no major limitations." Almost every day I can hear my classmates around me emotionally discussing their love and hate for a subject. However, for many of my classmates in China, the choice of major is not about love, but about reality - literature, history and philosophy are absurd and funny; social science is a livelihood by cheating money; only pragmatic majors are iron rice bowls. You have to survive first, poetry and distance later. Such a life seems to always be passive, as if you cannot control anything as an individual. He's an enduro race where the finish is either exculpatory or insane.
I saw the familiar look of the leadership, with the tact and opportunism of the subordinate relationship flashing in the eyes. To a certain extent, being out of the culture I grew up in gave my mental state a breathing space, looking at the different types of pedestrians and management with different personalities, I said to myself, "There is no one personality that is absolutely superior. Yes, as long as you keep your enthusiasm, people of any character have a chance to climb to the top of their ideals." To this day, I never thought about where my definition of "absolutely superior personality/character" came from. This perfect personality is like this: serious, cautious, eager to win, winking, and interpersonal. The management has never been a management background, but is a leader who has come up from the bottom to play with power, and the demeanor is the same.
I saw the weariness and helplessness under the smiling masks of the crowd dancing for the leader at the celebration. Another happy holiday to celebrate the great leader, the North Korean people were out of neat formations in the square, smiling and applauding with the same frequency. It started with a mocking smile for one second, admiration for how neat they were the next, followed by a long period of panic and exhaustion. They look empty and weary in this scene, but what I am familiar with is what precedes this scene before me. What teen didn't have a boring rehearsal in childhood? Rehearsing over and over again for things you don't care about, working hard for what seems like an honorable mission, in choirs, in class queues, in celebrations. Everyone is a weary pawn, assembled in the hands of the puppets into a gift for the leader.
I also saw confused. You know all this is fake. The factory did not achieve "150%", let alone the national target of "200%"; the engineer who came to help solve technical problems actually worked in the publishing and printing industry; the veteran who told the story of shooting a fighter with a rifle knows that this is not what really happened. ; The "screenwriters" who compiled the North Korean script and the leaders of coordination and supervision understood that this was nothing more than a weapon for brainwashing and propaganda. But it's easy to spot what's fake; it's hard to find what's truly trustworthy. I saw the pedestrians pushing the tram onto the rails, wearing similar clothes and slamming against the window. What did they think at that moment? I dare say that no matter what kind of emotion they are, they must have felt accustomed to it - the accustomed helplessness, the accustomed anger, the accustomed numbness. Perhaps truth and falsehood are less obvious in other places. Maybe it's a better cover, maybe it seeps into your life, and you feel dazedly deceived, but when all the evidence and all the choices are wiped out, what else can you choose? Empty confusion and ignorant piety, no road has the imaginary fragrance of flowers.
Growing up, the Soviet Union was just a distant historical term for me. Even though historical facts tell me: "The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was only 8 years before you were born", "Your parents both grew up in China under the Soviet era", I still cannot empathize with this country. But in fact, this history has not gone far: I think of the confusion when I was taught that the red scarf around my neck is "stained by the blood of soldiers" when I was a child, and the fact that I finally got it after many setbacks, but I don't know what it means after I got it. , a shoddy group emblem; I remember the fake smiles I put on to perform on stage in my childhood, I remember crying the night before participating in a chorus competition and wanting a pair of standard pure white stockings and black patent leather shoes; I remember the teenage hosts seem to agree Facial expressions and demeanor, as well as the falsely raised hands in the open class; I remembered the regimental chapters I memorized by rote for joining the regiment and the four political books
I spent a lot of time memorizing at that time... This is also my childhood.
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My rating It's all about the reflections I get from it, not the documentary itself.
The music setting of this film is very tendentious, rendering a lonely and desolate atmosphere.
I will not comment on how the whole film was shot, everyone sees it differently.
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