Time to change the tape and order another cappuccino. Rather jokingly, I asked Baldi: “Did you ever meet Kim Jong Il? You know, he’s a big movie fan.” He made a serious face, and I was quick to turn the tape recorder back on.
F.B.: One day, the director of the movie business came, the chief, and he said: “On Sunday, you are invited by our President. To meet him.”
J.S.: So that was Kim Il Sung or Kim Jong Il?
F.B.: No, no, the old one.
J.S.: Kim Il Sung.
F.B.: So, on that day, they came with a truck and they showed us where he was born, where he lived when he was young, the school he went to, and a tree, a big tree, where he started to create the political philosophy, you know the …
J.S.: Juche philosophy
F.B.: Huh? Yes… And the little house, farm house, where his parents lived. After all that touring, they sent us to a big museum. In the mountains. Very big.
J.S.: At Mount Myohyang? Near Pohyong Temple? The Friendship Museum?
F.B.: Yes. They showed us the gifts he got from other presidents. After a couple of hours, they took us to the presidential palace. There, an authority came to us, I don’t know, some vice-minister or something, and he said he had to read a message from Kim Il Sung to us, saying, “Our president welcomes you, he thanks you for coming but he apologizes because he cannot meet you.” Because he had the Chinese ambassador there or something. He said, “Kim Il Sung wishes to send you a picture of himself for everyone,” (Baldi gesticulated to describe the size of the picture; it seemed to be the same size as the standard Kim Il Sung portraits hanging on all office walls in North Korea). That was it, the only relations I had with Kim Il Sung. But I saw him another time at a big parade on the main square in Pyongyang. Thousands and thousands of people were there and we saw him just from very far away.
J.S.: And the young one? Kim Jong Il? Because Kim Jong Il loves movies and he loves to come to the movie sets. Did he show up at your set?
F.B.: Yes. Just to get to know the actors. He was very kind. He showed up a few times.
J.S.: He just showed up?
F.B.: Yes, yes.
J.S.: Without announcement?
F.B.: No, no, nothing else. That’s all… But he was a young guy then. I’m talking about the 1980s.
J.S.: Did you talk to him?
F.B.: No, no.
J.S.: He just spoke to the actors?
F.B.: He spoke to the actors. He says, “Hello, hello…”
J.S.: So, he did not say, “Shoot the movie this way?”
F.B.: No, no.
J.S.: Because he likes to do that with North Korean films.
F.B.: No, no, he didn’t. But the assistant director, he said all the time when Kim Jong Il was there, “Yes… no problem…right…” Baldi really did not seem comfortable discussing this subject. Did Kim Jong Il really show up in front of the foreign staff?
Kenpachiro Satsuma, the Godzilla-suited actor working on Pulgasari, told me in an interview that in his case too, Kim Jong Il came to the set but absolutely stayed away from all the foreigners; he was strictly meeting only the Koreans working on the film.
