'Argo,' 'Atonement,' and James Bond: Inside North Koreans' Movie Favorites

Kim Jong Un’s spokesperson tells ‘Vanity Fair,’ “James Bond is a good character.”

Given Kim Jong Un’s outrage over The Interview, it would seem that North Korea is no fan of Hollywood. In fact, the opposite may be true. The late Kim Jong Il, father of the current dictator, loved Elizabeth Taylor, was reportedly a huge fan of The Godfather, and boasted that he’d seen every Oscar-winning film in history. And Kim Jong Un’s grandfather Kim Il Sung established the Pyongyang Film Studio, a massive filmmaking complex where local movies are produced and the biennial Pyongyang International Film Festival is held.

In a fascinating new dispatch for Vanity Fair, journalist Pico Iyer pays a visit to that little-known film festival, where he talks to locals about the Western movies they love. Given that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is largely isolated from the outside world, it’s somewhat shocking to hear North Korean citizens praise recent films like Argo and The Bourne Identity. James Bond movies, a favorite of Kim Jong Il (except for Die Another Day, which he condemned for its North Korean villain), are still widely beloved. So is The Sound of Music, which one resident says he saw “more than a hundred times” in college.

Watch a trailer for Bend it Like Beckham which aired in North Korea:

The 2007 World War II drama Atonement, which opened the film festival in 2008, passed muster with the North Korean government. (“They’re fine with period pieces, things that are safely in the past,” journalist Barbara Demick tells Vanity Fair.) So did the Mr. Bean films, which apparently had audiences falling out of their seats. And in 2010, the first Western movie debuted on North Korean television: a somewhat censored version of the soccer comedy Bend it Like Beckham. And yet, North Koreans have somehow not seen Frozen, which Iyer describes one international festival-goer playing for a local on his iPad. Go here to read the full article from Vanity Fair’s March issue.

Image credit: AP Photo/Wong Maye-E, File