Whether it’s the controversial comedy “The Interview” or smash hit k-drama “Crash Landing On You,” stories set in North Korea often capture the public’s attention for their sensational storylines. “True North” is no departure from this tradition as it explores some of the darkest aspects of life in North Korea: life inside its political prison camps. Based on extensive interviews with former camp inmates, “True North” follows the story of a fictional family’s fall from grace in the Pyongyang elite to the squalor of a prison camp. The two young siblings grow up inside the camp and take on two starkly different philosophies. The sister finds meaning in her life by seeking out the beauty and kindness in her surroundings, while her brother vows to do whatever it takes to guarantee that his family survives.
One of the hallmark characteristics of the film is its art style. The characters look like they have been carved out of wood, although their movements and expressions remain expressive and life-like. Some viewers may find the art style of True North a bit crude, but the wood-carving style reflects the film’s overall cinematic style quite well: sturdy albeit lacking subtlety. The narrative is admittedly a bit heavy-handed in some sections, but perhaps this is unavoidable with a topic as heavy as life in North Korea’s prisons. The characters themselves are the backbone of the film, and much of the film’s strength lies in the absence of a clear central protagonist and the film’s efforts to show the diversity of experience and philosophies in the camps. The inmates display immense inner strength as they battle against the hopelessness of their situation and struggle to re-conceive what it means to be part of a community where everyone is struggling to survive. This reviewer particularly appreciated the secondary plot following the evolution of one of the prison guards and how life in the camps slowly robs him of his empathy. His descent into brutality despite his privileged life as a prison guard serves as a foil to the imprisoned siblings who come to treat life as all the more precious for its precariousness.
The message that humans will always have an impulse for kindness and connection, even in the worst circumstances, is evocative of other well-known films about atrocities like the Holocaust or the Khmer Rouge. The fact that “True North” settles into this genre so comfortably only drives home the horrific nature of North Korea’s prison camps. Unlike these other films, however, the events of “True North” are not confined to the past. An (at times) melodramatic tear-jerker, this animated film is by no means easy to watch, but it is worth watching all the same.
True North is a 2020 animated film from Director Eiji Han Shimizu. Watch the trailer here (English).
Edited by Robert Lauler.
