ⓒ YONHAP News

On February 1, North Korea’s state-run Korean Central TV aired a documentary film titled The Great Year of Victory, 2021. 

In the film, leader Kim Jong-un is seen on a white horse, gazing at the red sun rising above the horizon. It is a propaganda film that shows the leader’s achievements last year.  

In the end, the film features the leader racing through a forest at top speed, holding the horse’s reins with one hand. 

In North Korea, a white horse has a symbolic meaning. The symbolism started from North Korean founder Kim Il-sung. North Korea claims that Kim rode a white horse while fighting the Japanese during the colonial period. In the North, a white horse is meant to project an image of an ideal leader. By adapting that image of his grandfather, current leader Kim Jong-un has justified the legitimacy of the hereditary power succession. In this way, North Korean documentaries carry special significance. 

Today, we’ll learn about North Korea’s documentary films from Kim Seung, adjunct professor of the Department of Digital Culture and Contents at Konkuk University. 

North Korea produces nearly 30 documentaries a year. The films are mostly about state policies, political events and the latest issues. The Korean Central TV airs documentaries quite often.

North Korean documentaries are more than just films. They could be regarded as historical records, as they show the revolution history of the party and the leaders. Clearly, documentaries are used as an important propaganda tool for the regime. North Korean documentaries typically show scenes of huge crowds, urging the locals to join the drive. The films serve two purposes of tightening internal discipline and demonstrating internal unity to the outside world. 

Regime founder Kim Il-sung recognized the importance of documentary films. Right after Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule, he set up a film studio. North Korea began to produce documentaries in 1946 to underscore the legitimacy of the regime. 

It is relatively simple to produce documentaries, which can educate the people quickly. That’s why North Korea gave full support to the production of documentaries in its early years, despite inadequate materials and technology. A documentary titled The 38th Parallel created in 1948, for example, shows an aerial view of the Hungnam(흥남) Fertilizer Factory, as if it was an aerial video shot by a drone. For North Korea, 1967 was an important year, when the so-called Gapsan(갑산) faction was purged and Kim Il-sung established the monolithic ideological system. Around that time, documentaries became increasingly didactic. 

In many North Korean documentaries, background music replaces narration or ambient noise. The overuse of music makes some documentaries look like music videos. 

It seems the North secured a massive amount of video materials about top leaders and uses them, when necessary. For instance, a documentary about leader Kim Jong-un’s mother Ko Yong-hui appeared only after Kim came to power. Entitled The Mother of Great Military First Korea, the documentary was made in 2011 and was first shown to high officials the following year. In the documentary, Ko is seen to accompany former leader Kim Jong-il on his on-site inspections of military units and enterprises and to attend public events such as a military concert. Viewers of the documentary can also hear her voice. 

The film shows pictures of Ko watching her son Kim Jong-un, when he was little, read a book, draw a picture and plant a tree, followed by scenes of Kim Jong-un, as an heir apparent, conducting field inspections and attending a military parade, alongside his father Kim Jong-il. Analysts assume the documentary tries to emphasize that Kim Jong-un officially belongs to the so-called Baekdu bloodline. 

It is the first documentary that reveals scenes of Ko and her voice. It was filmed in the late 1990s, when people didn’t really expect that then-leader Kim Jong-il would hand over power to his son Kim Jong-un. Still, North Korea worked on video materials about Kim Jong-un’s mother. It seems North Korea manages a large amount of off-the-record videos and uses them whenever necessary. 

Current leader Kim Jong-un has used documentaries for political purposes, like his father and grandfather. In January 2012, about a month after the death of Kim Jong-il, North Korea unveiled a documentary, Inheriting Great Achievements of Military-First Revolution of Mt. Baekdu. 

Starting with a scene of Kim Jong-un racing around on a horse, the film shows the leader visiting the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, the resting place of his father and grandfather, and directing a large-scale military drill involving naval vessels. Again, the film underlines that Kim Jong-un is a legitimate successor. To deliver the message effectively, North Korea used sophisticated editing techniques. 

The film stresses that Kim Jong-il had absolute trust in his son Kim Jong-un, who is the main line of descent in the Baekdu bloodline. It also emphasizes that the younger Kim is a great general who upholds the military-first spirit, just like his father. By associating the son with the father, the film uses a technique called “transfer.” 

It also employs the “cross-cutting” editing technique to justify the third-generation power succession. Kim Il-sung is described as a pioneer in revolution, while metaphors of the sun and the flag are used for Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un, respectively. After viewing these scenes repeatedly, North Korean people naturally believe that Kim Jong-un is the official successor. 

Kim Jong-un’s power base was rather weak in the initial period of his rule. He had to depend on the reflected glory of his predecessors, and documentary films accentuated his political legitimacy through the cross-cutting editing technique. 

A major change was detected in North Korean documentaries in 2016, Kim Jong-un’s fifth year in power. Former leaders were gone, and the young leader began to promote his achievements only. 

A documentary, Unfolding the Heyday of Revolution, was shown right after the seventh congress of the Workers’ Party ended. It draws attention to the leader inspecting military units to show off the country’s military power and shows scenes of nuclear tests and missile launches to highlight his achievements. Experts say the film uses diverse techniques for screen direction. 

The film’s screen composition is different from previous ones. In any picture or video, the top leader should be positioned in the center. That was the basic principle. But in this documentary, Kim Jong-un is seen to stand alone against the background of Mt. Baekdu. This scene was shot from high above. The crane shot makes the scene looks majestic and the moving camera makes the leader’s young and dynamic appearance more noticeable. 

In the scene of the leader watching a missile launch, he is filmed from behind. Shooting and showing the leader’s appearance from behind was definitely a fresh attempt. 

Another distinctive part of North Korean documentaries in the Kim Jong-un era is that he is described as a warmhearted leader who tries to get closer to his people. 

Documentary films repeatedly show scenes of children running and flinging themselves into the leader’s arms, men and women holding the leader’s hands, the cheering crowd, people who jump into the water to follow the leader and guards who are at a loss when too many people blur the control line. In doing so, the films portray Kim as a loving parent, rather than a harsh leader. In this way, the young leader recreated his grandfather Kim Il-sung’s ruling ideology, “serving the people is serving the heaven.” 

Also notably, many scenes of the documentaries were shot at children’s eye level, in contrast to those produced in the previous Kim Jong-il era that were seen from a father’s point of view. 

Apparently, the documentaries tried to paint Kim Jong-un as a friendly leader who loves and cares for his people and future generations. 

Kim Jong-un’s image in documentary films changed again in 2018. At the time, North Korea approached the international diplomatic arena and even held the first ever summit with the U.S. North Korean Documentaries including Great Leadership for People Part 5 dealt with an improvement in the economy and public livelihoods. 

However, the situation suddenly took a turn for the worse after the Hanoi summit between North Korea and the U.S. in 2019 ended without an agreement. In a documentary, Brilliant History of Victory, released in October that year, former leaders Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il appear again and “self-reliance” is highlighted as the instruction left by the deceased leaders. In an unusual move, the film included Kim Il-sung’s speech to stress the importance of internal unity. 

Analysts say that Kim Jong-un began to use his predecessors again in an effort to tackle the current difficulties, such as international sanctions on North Korea and the stalled Pyongyang-Washington relations. 

Now we understand North Korean documentaries have been used to record and promote the top leaders’ achievements. The country is expected to continue producing such films in the Kim Jong-un era to make them keep playing a political role in propaganda and agitation. 

In North Korea, documentaries far outnumber art films. I guess documentaries will continue to play their role as a propaganda tool for a while. This is simply unimaginable in a capitalistic country. How can documentaries, whose market share is low, comprise the mainstream of the film industry? But in the socialist North, it is easy to use documentaries for so-called “speed battles” or labor campaigns. So, they will likely continue to perform their political mission in the Kim Jong-un era. Perhaps, North Korean authorities are aware that people show less interest in documentaries, which are now almost stereotyped. To remedy the shortcomings, the North is expected to use experts in documentary production, with its number estimated at 15-hundred, to create Kim Jong-un’s success story and include some watchable spectacles in new documentaries. I imagine North Korea will make diverse cinematic experiments.

As carefully calculated productions, North Korean documentaries officially and explicitly reveal the authorities’ intentions. North Korea churns out dozens of documentary films each year. Through the films, we can read the hidden side of the North Korean regime and present an outlook for the country’s future. That’s why we’re interested in North Korean documentaries.