All Monsters Must Die Read online

  It’s nine in the morning on our sixth day and the irritation is rising. The Bromma boys are missing and we’re not allowed to leave without them. After another ten minutes, one of them shows up, tired and pale yet freshly washed. With a neutral expression he informs us that his two friends are missing, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. Mr. Song has been on the brink of a meltdown for a long while and rushes off the bus. After another ten minutes, he returns, his face flushed, with the two other Bromma boys skulking behind him.

  One says to anyone who will listen: “I’m in the shower and then that fucking Asian just shows up screaming at me.” That he and his friends have delayed us for more than an hour doesn’t seem to faze him. We hear him in the back of the bus, boasting: “At least I got my shower in.”

  WE MIGHT MISS the most important stop on this trip: a visit to the Korean Film Studio on the outskirts of Pyongyang. Mr. Song instates “democracy” at this point. We’re supposed to vote on whether we’ll go to the film studio or the children’s palace. We don’t have time for both. Luckily, the film studio wins by a few votes. But, before that, we’re going to Kim Il-sung’s mausoleum.

  The mausoleum is housed in Kim Il-sung’s enormous palace, the Kumsusan Sun Memorial Palace. This was where he lived and worked — surrounded by architecture fit for a prince. The palace is northeast of the city centre. Two of its sides are protected by a moat.

  We enter the imposing building and are sent through a number of stations to prepare for the encounter in the inner chamber. The first is a corridor with rotating brushes that clean the soles of our shoes. Then we arrive at a cloakroom. Someone rips off Ari’s flat cap and he blinks as if he has just woken up. It’s the first time we have seen his bare head. Next comes the X-ray machine and a metal detector. And then we enter a seemingly endless corridor with a moving walkway.

  Kim Il-sung’s mausoleum is the primary pilgrimage site for North Korean citizens. We pass hundreds of serious people being whisked along in the opposite direction on the moving walkway. They are all deeply touched by their experience. They’re wearing their best clothes and their faces are damp with tears. Our group’s presence jars — our posture, the laughing Bromma boys — and many of them seem to regard us with distaste.

  We go up an escalator to the next floor. We hear atmospheric music and then a gigantic room opens up before us. At the far end we see an enormous white illuminated statue of Kim Il-sung. The background is lit like a sunrise, the colours transitioning from orange to deep blue. The polished stone floor is like a liquid mirror. It reminds us of the palace in the Emerald City in the Wizard of Oz, where Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion, the Tin Man, and the Scarecrow stumble forth and stand trembling in anticipation of their audience with the Wizard.

  Mr. Song encourages us to fix our eyes on the statue but not to bow this time, which one would otherwise always do before statues of Kim Il-sung. We are instructed to hold our gazes for sixty seconds and then turn right and go into the next room.

  Guides move around the room dressed in joseonots made of thick black velvet. They speak incessantly with declamatory voices that every so often crack with despair. On the walls are bronze reliefs that depict groups of grieving people. The marble floor is darker in this room. The specks in the black porphyritic rock glisten, and the female guides say that the floor has been flooded with so many tears that they have turned to crystal.

  We are led out of this room into another corridor and walk through a curtain of air that blasts the dust from our clothes. We then ride an elevator to the antechamber of the most important room: the mausoleum itself. Kim Il-sung’s body lays on a catafalque covered by a glass box. Mr. Song gives us careful instructions before we are allowed to approach. We are supposed to walk around the body, bow toward the feet, then to the body’s one side and the other, but absolutely not to the head. He doesn’t say it outright, but we understand that no living person is considered worthy of bowing to the Great Leader’s head.

  What we see resembles a wax figure with make-up on: shiny, pale-yellow skin; rouged lips. The North Korean visitors are profoundly affected and many are crying. We can’t help but be moved by their solemnity. As a finale, we are allowed to view his belongings: gifts and distinctions that Kim Il-sung was honoured with during his lifetime. Here is the leader’s black Mercedes and the train carriage he used when travelling through the country. In one room certificates, medals, and diplomas are on display. There are honorary doctorates in engineering and law from around the world. On the walls are pictures of Kim Il-sung shaking hands with Tito, Arafat, Gaddafi, Assad, Castro, Mubarak . . .

  According to Daily NK, it cost 900 million dollars to build the mausoleum. The figure is of course impossible to verify, but undoubtedly they burned through an enormous fortune — and this was during a time when the country was being ravaged by famine. The embalming, which was carried out in a Russian laboratory, is said to have cost one million dollars. Mr. Song says that the North Korean people are willing to offer themselves up for their leader. He says that the palace and everything related to it is a gift from the people.

  SOCIOLOGIST MAX WEBER coined the term “charismatic authority.” At the time, Weber didn’t differentiate between dictators like Hitler and Mussolini and the world’s religious leaders, shamans, and certain lunatics. Weber saw unifying characteristics in the magnetism of prophets, heroes, saviours, and political leaders. Charisma isn’t so much a trait a leader possesses as it is a product of a relationship between a leader and his followers, Weber said. There’s a duty among his subjects to continually hold up the idea of his magnetism. And so the production of charisma starts up, and the leader can take a step back and let the symbols do their job. Even the final exit — death — won’t slow this production down.

  * * *

  THE JAPANESE OCCUPYING powers understood the political importance of film and, in 1920, they established their own studio for pro-Japanese film productions. Japan had occupied Korea since 1905; by 1945 they had made 230 propaganda films, in which Korean identity was covered up or neglected and Japan was imagined as their knight in shining armour. The freedom of Korean filmmakers was limited. In each region of the occupied country, the local police were responsible for monitoring both the films and the audience’s reactions. Even film adaptations of traditional folk tales couldn’t evade the censors because there was a chance they might be critical allegories of the oppressive regime.

  In the 1940s, censorship became even more restrictive. In 1942 all Korean-language films were banned, and from that year until liberation in 1945 only Japanese was spoken in films in Korea. All actors, directors, and anyone else involved were given Japanese names, and any Korean film company could at any point be ordered to make propaganda films for the powers that be.

  Back in 1925, a group of writers and artists in southern Korea had established the KAPF (Korea Artista Proletaria Federatio, an Esperanto name). Within the KAPF were socialist guerilla filmmakers who worked under the motto “Art as arms for the class struggle.” After completing their fifth feature film, The Underground Village, which was about the lives of the poor in Seoul’s outskirts, KAPF members were imprisoned and the group was quashed. At the end of the Second World War, when the country was split, some of the surviving KAPF members chose to move to the North to be united with those they felt were their ideological comrades; others decided to stay in the South, and some were abducted by Kim Il-sung’s agents. Kim Il-sung had made use of kidnapping as a weapon of war since his days as guerilla soldier in Manchuria.

  The KAPF filmmakers soon fell out of favour with the North Korean government. Im Hwa, one of those who had been kidnapped, was executed after being accused of pro-Japanese activities. The others were branded as revisionists and anti-revolutionaries and were written out of the official historical record.

  The tendency toward melodrama in North Korea has given their propaganda its own voice: a declamatory, high-pitched vo
ice. This special inflection in speech has long been parodied in South Korea. This distinctive voice isn’t just used for propaganda; it has been adopted in everyday speech. Or, if you will, it has infected communication at every level. Films, songs, speeches, official messages — all forms of address are delivered in this tone.

  * * *

  IN THE 1980S, most people in South Korea believed that Choi Eun-hee and Shin Sang-ok had gone to North Korea of their own volition. In 1984 Choi Eun-hee won the Special Jury Prize as Best Director at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival for An Emissary of No Return, even though it was Shin who was the director. He had given credit to her because he wasn’t fully pleased with the film. That same year, the couple appeared on Yugoslavian and Czechoslovakian television and said that they had moved to North Korea out of their own free will. Of course they were actually being forced to participate in the charade.

  Oddly enough, they also did some shooting in the West. They rented the legendary Bavaria Film Studios in Munich for the fantasy film The Tale of Shim Cheong, a musical based on an ancient Korean myth about a princess living in a kingdom at the bottom of the sea. Shin actually already made one version of this myth in South Korea in 1972. Seven North Korean guards watched every step they took during production.

  Madame Choi and Shin had become an unmistakable part of the elite, and Kim Jong-il seemed to think that they had found their place.

  ON ONE OCCASION, Madame and Shin decided to smuggle a tape recorder into a meeting with Kim Jong-il. They wanted proof that they hadn’t come to North Korea of their own volition, proof that they could bring with them on the day they succeeded in escaping.

  At the meeting, Kim Jong-il speaks openly about how he was “forced” to bring them to North Korea. An important part of the country’s social structure was failing, and he had to take care of it, he explained. He needed to re-establish artistry in film. “I acknowledge that we lag behind in filmmaking techniques,” he said. He added that bringing them to North Korea wasn’t actually weighing on his conscience. But he excused himself anyway, saying: “We’re all part of the same nation, the land of the Joseon era.”

  * * *

  THE STUDIO IS deserted and the giant buildings rest on their secrets. An office complex surrounds an area that resembles a town square large enough to hold an army of film workers. The studio guide says that the filmmakers are currently on location.

  A bronze sculpture group stands on the square. It depicts Kim Il-sung in an overcoat, his arms resting tenderly on a little girl’s shoulders. Her hair is braided and she is smiling. Her small hand grips one of the leader’s index fingers. A film crew are to the right, cameras ready, and seem to be awaiting instruction, notepads and pens at hand. To the left are the girl’s parents, who look proudly on as their daughter is embraced by the Great Leader. They wait subserviently for the moment they can present him with a basket of flowers. There is no doubt that the filmmaking will sprout from the Great Leader’s advice. But right now, the leader is busy. A little girl with braids has crossed his path. She is a representative of the child race, so the leader drops everything to speak to her, and the filmmakers wait patiently for his instructions.

  The bus takes us to the backlot to view the sets. They aren’t really sets, but actual houses that have been built in a variety of styles. The guide points out that, this way, you can shoot from more angles. At the first stop we are allowed to view a few buildings that are meant to look like they are from the late Joseon period. To our dismay, we are immediately offered the opportunity to try on clothing from the costume department. Andrei is transformed into a feudal lord with a yellow silk cape, a hat, and a fake beard. Suddenly he perks up. He slowly stalks about the muddy ground with a regal expression, waving his arms theatrically, before taking his place on a wobbly wooden throne. The Bromma boys have found some wigs; the chubby one pulls on a bright red wig that makes him look like a bloated, grown-up Pippi Longstocking. They flank Andrei and make faces for the camera.

  AFTER THIS EXCRUCIATING scene, we are finally allowed to see the various towns that have been constructed for film shoots. We see the muddy streets of the studio’s vision of Seoul at the time of the Japanese occupation. Another set depicts a decadent nightlife area in Tokyo; naive scenery portrays immoral life in modern-day Seoul. There is a bucolic Asian farming idyll from an unspecified time, and a Bavarian village — the illusion is successful at a distance but then you get closer and see that the houses are made of reinforced concrete. The average North Korean citizen’s ideas about the world have been shaped by these sets.

  We take pictures of the signs in the studio town: the “Oasis” bar; “Happy Toothpaste,” a store that sells nylon underwear; “Fujicolor,” painted by a shaky hand. Korean and Chinese characters are used for these establishments. On a sign for a leather-goods store, all of the shoes and handbags are depicted as if they have fallen into a corner. Life in the West is brazenly luxurious. LUXURIOUS SHIRTS, TIES, SUITS AND MAKE-UP, proclaims one sign. Another advertises something as superfluous as pet accessories. A funny dog wearing sunglasses, a pearl necklace, and a hat is painted on it. Another sign is even more peculiar: WOMEN’S WRESTLING CLOTHES.

  The film posters on advertising columns are hand-painted. They illustrate versions of real films. Elements of famous movies have been mashed up, the casting has been changed, and they’ve created imaginary hybrid films. The Seven Year Itch shows a portrait of a woman who looks more like Jeanne Moreau than Marilyn Monroe. Giant features new actors: Clark Gable and Jane Russell instead of James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor. Treasure Island has the British actor Robert Newton in the lead as in the real film, but he’s acting opposite an unknown co-star: “Linda Danelle.”

  * * *

  WE IMAGINE THAT if we had been in this film studio exactly twenty-four years ago, in September 1984, we would have encountered an unusual rubber costume hanging on a stand. It resembles an armadillo standing on its hind legs. In a farming village, a forge is being built. It’s supposed to be a feudal village in the 1300s, during the Goryeo dynasty, even if the architecture isn’t strictly of its time.

  A Japanese film crew from Toho Studios in Tokyo has just arrived. The group comprises a number of special effects artists, along with suit actors Kenpachiro Satsuma and the diminutive Masao Fukazawa — stage name “Little Man Machan” — a former wrestling star and the embodiment of Godzilla’s son, Minilla. They have brought a large load of Styrofoam because this material isn’t available in North Korea. It will be used to make boulders that will be rolled down into a ravine in order to crush the Imperial Army.

  The monster’s head, with its evil grin, lies on the ground next to the stand with the rubber suit. Little Man Machan, who is barely four feet tall, climbs a ladder so he can take the suit down from its stand. His head sticks up out of the rubber torso and Satsuma crowns it with the monster’s head. Little Man Machan takes a few unsteady steps in the stiff, cumbersome costume, and struggles to raise his arms.

  The monster springs to life.

  KIM JONG-IL HAD the fantastic idea of copying a concept from his arch-enemy, Japan. He thought a kaiju (monster) movie might unite the nation, and in the frenzy around the film, the monster itself would become an idol. The creature could be spread to the masses in the form of a plastic toy. And best of all, a message could be embedded in this adventure — a message that would fill the people with courage. The movie would bear the monster’s name: Pulgasari.

  How the Toho crew had ended up in North Korea was something of a mystery. Satsuma himself wrote about the events in his autobiography I Am the Actor. He strikes a trickster-like pose on the cover, resembling a Toshiro Mifune lookalike, and his tone is self-regarding. In his filmography, pornography and comedies are listed alongside his many monster films. But he doesn’t mention Little Man Machan’s alleged behind-the-scenes involvement in the production of Pulgasari. Rumours of connections to the Japanese mafia swirled a
round the diminutive actor.

  According to Satsuma, the Toho crew thought they were en route to Hollywood for an assignment, but just before they departed they were told they were supposed to shoot in North Korea instead. Along with their boss Mr. Suzuki, one Mr. Kazuo Kinagawa from Hong Kong had taken care of the arrangements. The Hong Kong man clearly was an employee of Kim Jong-il. Whether he tricked Mr. Suzuki or bribed him, Satsuma doesn’t say.

  After one week of filming in a studio in Beijing, the Toho crew arrived in Pyongyang. The crew members were chauffeured in Mercedes Benzes on empty roads that had no traffic lights and they spent the night in one of Kim Jong-il’s private residences. Satsuma describes his surprise upon seeing the studio. The newly built four-storey building had 300 rooms.

  THE TOHO CREW was quartered in a first-class hotel in central Pyongyang. The rooms had brick-red walls and moss-green, wall-to-wall carpeting, as well as trouser presses and marble bathtubs. Breakfast was always the same: toast that crumbled as soon as you touched it, goat milk, fried radishes, bacon, eggs, and apples. In the evenings, they’d grab a drink in the hotel bar. The prices were unpredictable. One whisky could cost 2,000 yen (about 8 dollars), the same price they’d pay for the whole crew’s tab on another night. Other times it was free.

  Phone calls home were allowed only if they were requested a week in advance, but they were permitted to watch NHK, Japan’s national television station. After a month they were downgraded. The Mercedes were replaced with Volvos, and the crew was moved to a more modest hotel.

  But the strangest part of the whole situation was that the director was the famous South Korean Shin Sang-ok. And his celebrity actress-wife Madame Choi sometimes appeared on set. Why was South Korea’s leading director of melodrama filming a kaiju movie in Pyongyang? He’d left for the North, they knew, but had he been bribed or forced? They could do nothing but speculate. No one dared to ask.