North Korea/Iraq
- Episode aired Jan 31, 2003
YOUR RATING
Photos
- Directors
- Will Daws(segment North Korea)
- Elizabeth C. Jones(segment Iraq)
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Featured review
Goodies and Baddies
Interesting pair of programmes combined into an 80-minute video, reporting from two destinations in Dubya Bush's 'Axis of Evil' - North Korea and Iraq.
We are reminded that North Korea is still officially at war with South Korea and its US ally, from the 1953 armistice that has never led to a peace treaty. In fact, North Korea still calls itself plain 'Korea', refusing to acknowledge any border with the south.
Looking around at these bare, echoing streets, we can believe that this is still sixty years ago, an age that had never known litter or graffiti or rap-music. The locals just spend all day listening to patriotic anthems by the People's Army Chorus, and believing that BMW's are locally manufactured. As for the bright, smiling tourist-guides allocated to the BBC's Ben Anderson, they are allowed to speak only in well-rehearsed propaganda statements that sound eerie indeed. But we note that if any passing bird should happen to besmirch the statue of the Great Leader, the nearest person must restore things in short order, for fear of terrible penalties.
Anderson is very much a creature of the Beeb, exuding enough of the hippie-rebel in-your-face image to qualify as a full member of the tribe, complete with right-on glottal-stop diction which only occasionally obscures his commentary. You might expect this manner to grate on the regime, but he seems to have made rapport with the people he meets. There are signs that some of his dialogue to camera has had to be filmed furtively. Alone on a lunch-break, he shows us the wretched scrag-ends that pass for chicken and pork in the Hermit kingdom. He also notes the irony of the phrase 'Demilitarised Zone', a checkpoint bristling with weapons, where you can just feel the dangerous tension-levels that could provoke a world war at any time. Given the obsessive attention they focus on this border, it is also ironical that the only spiritual contamination comes from the other border, with China, where many visitors have been quite heavily exposed to Western influences. This programme is spoiled by one piece of startlingly bad editing, with a whole section of at least five minutes directly duplicated in error.
The Iraq programme was made just after Saddam Hussein's 2002 show-election, where not one person voted against him, only months before the Allied invasion that brought him down. Here too we listen to state-singers praising the leader who thinks he's Nebuchadnezzar rebuilding his own Babylon, and the name Saddam must not be uttered by anyone in public. Remembering what's happened since, however, the goodies and baddies are less well separated-out from each other. This footage will always carry documentary value, because of its timing, but is somehow less involving than the North Korea story - and not only because Anderson has spoiled the effect with one thumping cliché, 'cradle of civilisation'.
We are reminded that North Korea is still officially at war with South Korea and its US ally, from the 1953 armistice that has never led to a peace treaty. In fact, North Korea still calls itself plain 'Korea', refusing to acknowledge any border with the south.
Looking around at these bare, echoing streets, we can believe that this is still sixty years ago, an age that had never known litter or graffiti or rap-music. The locals just spend all day listening to patriotic anthems by the People's Army Chorus, and believing that BMW's are locally manufactured. As for the bright, smiling tourist-guides allocated to the BBC's Ben Anderson, they are allowed to speak only in well-rehearsed propaganda statements that sound eerie indeed. But we note that if any passing bird should happen to besmirch the statue of the Great Leader, the nearest person must restore things in short order, for fear of terrible penalties.
Anderson is very much a creature of the Beeb, exuding enough of the hippie-rebel in-your-face image to qualify as a full member of the tribe, complete with right-on glottal-stop diction which only occasionally obscures his commentary. You might expect this manner to grate on the regime, but he seems to have made rapport with the people he meets. There are signs that some of his dialogue to camera has had to be filmed furtively. Alone on a lunch-break, he shows us the wretched scrag-ends that pass for chicken and pork in the Hermit kingdom. He also notes the irony of the phrase 'Demilitarised Zone', a checkpoint bristling with weapons, where you can just feel the dangerous tension-levels that could provoke a world war at any time. Given the obsessive attention they focus on this border, it is also ironical that the only spiritual contamination comes from the other border, with China, where many visitors have been quite heavily exposed to Western influences. This programme is spoiled by one piece of startlingly bad editing, with a whole section of at least five minutes directly duplicated in error.
The Iraq programme was made just after Saddam Hussein's 2002 show-election, where not one person voted against him, only months before the Allied invasion that brought him down. Here too we listen to state-singers praising the leader who thinks he's Nebuchadnezzar rebuilding his own Babylon, and the name Saddam must not be uttered by anyone in public. Remembering what's happened since, however, the goodies and baddies are less well separated-out from each other. This footage will always carry documentary value, because of its timing, but is somehow less involving than the North Korea story - and not only because Anderson has spoiled the effect with one thumping cliché, 'cradle of civilisation'.
helpful•00
- Goingbegging
- Nov 9, 2016
Details
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content
Top Gap
What is the broadcast (satellite or terrestrial TV) release date of North Korea/Iraq (2003) in Australia?
Answer