Documentary Review

Recently I watched the documentary "The Red Chapel", made in 2009. It's about three Danish guys who pose as a theater troupe called The Red Chapel troupe, and go to North Korea under the pretense of cultural exchange. Actually though, they're spying. The name Red Chapel is a communist reference, but to a communist group spying on Nazi Germany, so maybe not the idea that the North Koreans had. The group is made up of the journalist Mads Brügger, and the comedians Simon Jul and Jacob Nossell. Simon and Jacob were born in Korea, but given up for adoption and grew up in Denmark. This was the first time they'd been home. Here's the trailer, kind of long, but good.

Mags is a weird sort of journalist. He impersonates things he's not in order to get information he wants, and that's what's going on here. He gets these two comedians to pretend they're a communist sympathizing theater troupe, so he can get in and try and expose North Korea and get good solid evidence of the atrocities the government commits. The troupe does actually put together a show, with skits and tap dancing and songs, to perform. But tt turns out a little differently than he expects. Besides focusing on Mags' search for truth, the documentary also looks at Jacob's experience. See, Jacob suffers from cerebral palsy, so he's usually in a wheelchair, has speech issues, and his muscles don't work the way they're supposed to. His intelligence level is normal, but everything else is really obvious. North Korea has been accused of killing children with disabilities. As they get closer to the performance date, the North Korea government representatives assigned to the troupe give Jacob a smaller and smaller role, eventually saying that he can't even talk. Jacob says that when he went there he was naive and didn't realize how bad it really was, he was only 18, but it really did serve as an awakening for him, as well as to highlight the issue of how people with handicaps are treated in North Korea.

Something that I really like about this documentary is that there's a counterpoint to Mags' view that North Korea is terrible, and he is right in doing whatever it takes to get the information out. Mags says that he has no scruples at all, and he joins in in doing whatever the North Koreans are doing so they won't get suspicious, but Jacob won't do it. He believes that the issue is more complicated than Mags will admit too, and they have some interesting discussions about it. But Mags also talks about whether he prompted Jacob into an emotional breakdown, and whether he's right for doing this without being confronted which I liked. It was nice that he entertained the thought, and talked about it in the movie. While a lot of it is dedicated to him trying to catch the North Koreans, and he can be a bit of a jerk sometimes, he's honest and I thought that was good.

This documentary is really interesting because it shows what it's like inside of North Korea. At least as much as is possible, given that the government really doesn't allow anyone outside of a given area. But they are shown a lot of Pyongyang, schools, culture centers, and they go on some picnics. Mads compares going on a picnic in North Korea to going on a picnic in the Black Forest in Nazi Germany. While watching the movie, you're always reminded of the terrible conditions, the totalitarian government. Pyongyang is empty, there's almost no one in the streets. And the three Dutch guys have this lady named Mrs. Pak follow them around everywhere, all the time, and they're only allowed to see what the government wants them to see. They have a camera, but they have to turn over the film to government censors, who will cut out any parts they see as demeaning to their "Great Leader", Kim Jong Il (remember this was made in 2009). 

"The Red Chapel" was made with not that great of a camera, and it was just one camera, so they can't really get all that fancy with the cinematography. But the editing is really nice, especially in this one scene where they all go to school. There's a bunch of super talented genius kids, and pictures of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il everywhere, and it's all edited so that is goes by very quickly, with the Great Leaders in pretty much all of the shots, and it's really overwhelming which is how it was for the Jacob and Simon. There's also a recurring motif. Trusted members of the inner party get these little pins with a picture of Kim Il Sung's face on them, and whenever they meet someone new there's a shot of the pin. This isn't really editing, but it's kind of in the same category. They used a lot of archival footage of old performances, or old appearances of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, and that really added to the image of North Korea that they were creating.The sound is similarly sort of elegantly understated, basically just whatever they had available. They got to watch some performances by some of the super talented genius children from the school, and sound from those performances is used in throughout the movie. Other than that, it's mostly just dialogue, ambiant noise, and also Mags' narration that was added in after they came back to Denmark. 

I thought this movie was really interesting, and it might not be interesting to everyone, but I think if you're interested in current events or world history or stuff like that then it would be interesting. Also it's just entertaining to watch and see the interactions between the government officials and the three Dutch guys who are trying to see how far they can push it. After these three guys, no Dutch journalists have ever been let in to North Korea. Here's the movie poster, here is a link to the movie's website, and this is the end.

Today I went to the National Museum of Women in the Arts, because they had an exhibit called Women Who Rock about women in music, and it was really cool and so I thought I would write about it. They started in the 1920s ish and then into now except they went from now back to the 1920s so it wasn't in chronological order which was kind of annoying. But they had the costumes, and lps, and lyrics, and they had Joan Jett's guitar, they had a bunch of people's guitars and several bass too. So that was really cool, especially getting to see the handwritten lyrics. They had tv screens playing biographies for all the artists featured, and then they also had a room where they played music videos.

The exhibit was broken down into several different time periods, and I'm now going to write about one person from each time period (briefly) and then link a video. Because that little paragraph was short, and everyone in the exhibit was really good. So to start off our journey through female music making or whatever, let's look at Maaaaa Rainey. It's actually just Ma Rainey. She was one of the earliest, and a very influential blues artist, known for her powerful voice, energy, and her peculiar "moaning" style of singing. She made songs that poor people in the South could relate to, like "Bo Weevil Blues" and that made her really popular also she was really cool so that helped. Here is one of her songs. Quality isn't that great, because at the time Paramount had terrible audio recording equipment so sad. It's called Booze And Blues.

It's really bluesy, and wonderful, and you can kind of hear her excellent voice. Alright so now we move on to the thirties. Sister Rosetta Tharpe was not only an excellent guitar player, she was also willing to cross the line between spiritual and secular, and bring gospel to us atheists. Fun fact: a video of her playing is also featured in the movie Amelie (the first e should have an accent but I don't really feel like figuring out how to do that). Anyway, so Rosetta was really influential on people like Elvis on Johnny Cash, and she was really good, so here's some of her playing. It's called Up Above My Head.

Ok now to be honest I can't really remember the forties very well, so I think what we'll do now is just sort of skip over to Ruth, yes Ruth Brown. So Ruth Brown was an R&B artist, who made R&B more commercially successful. Ok so now we're going to start getting into the part where not only are the female artists influential and good, they write songs about women's issues. So Ruth Brown popularized R&B, and Atlantic (record company) was known as "the house that Ruth built" because she was so successful and everyone loved her. She also wrote a song about being in an abusive relationship, and the song ended with her saying that she was going to leave. This is technically not the regular version, but I like it better. It's called Mama; He Treats Your Daughter Mean.

So then there was the sixties. Doo-woppy girl groups, or single acts, was how women interacted with music. There were actually just a lot of them, and they usually had really cool names. So for the early sixties (by the end it had changed a looot so the museum divided it into two halves when organizing, and i am following in their footsteps) we're going to look at Leslie Gore. Besides having a good name, she wrote one of the first feminist anthem songs. She also decided to go to college, instead of continuing on with her 15 minutes of fame kind of career. So while she may not have really influenced music a whole lot, she was an important figure for women. Here is You Don't Own Me.

The second half of the sixties were pretty different from the first half. Psychedelic rock, folk, hippies, all kinds of weird stuff. Janis Joplin is a favorite of mine, and also a very influential person, so she is our focus person (that sounds right) for the late sixties. She had a fantastic voice, and sang with so much passion, and was incredible, and her lyrics had all of that too. It's so raw, and she sang about things without boundaries really. She sang about love REAL LOVE MAN I feel kind of silly saying that, I'm all of sixteen years old, but you can hear it in her voice it's real for her. So I have to link Piece Of My Heart what kind of person would I be if I didn't.

And so now it's the seventies, in time travel women's music land. My personal tastes are going to greatly interfere here, since they gave pop artists like Cher and then rock musicians like Joan Jett I'm going to go for Joan here always. So this paragraph is about Joan Jett. She founded one of the first all-girl rock bands, and it was even mildly successful in Japan yeah! Then she started Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, and wrote awesome songs, and was an awesome guitarist, inspired at least in part the riot-grrrl movement, and she still plays today. Way to go Joan. I'm gonna go with Bad Reputation here even though it had bad words aahhh

And now we're onto the eighties almost done guys they kind of lumped the nineties in the with the eighties and the two thousands I guess everyone would just like to forget them, right? Haha well moving onto Kim Deal, and punk! Kim Deal was the bassist for The Pixies, and then she went on to form her own band, The Breeders, where everyone except for the drummer is a girl. She's a great bassist and guitarist, and she achieved success with both The Pixies and The Breeders. Both bands were really popular in the 90s, and the punk movement. This is Cannonball, one of The Breeders' most successful songs.

And so now we're in the present! Mostly the museum people chose to focus on pop music artists, which makes sense, since they're the ones who have been the most visible, and it's sort of our generations music much as it pains me to say that. But ok so they had three separate display cases for Lady Gaga which really bugged me, because Lady Gaga is really just a pale imitation of Madonna and there are tons of other people in that exhibit they could have given two extra cases too. One of them was her meat dress too. Ugh anyway, back on track, this paragraph is about Bikini Kill, from the riot-grrrl movement which was pretty much all feminism and Bikini Kill was one of the biggest bands out there. The last couple of songs haven't been really explicitly about feminism, but pretty much all of Bikini Kill's are. So this is the last song, and it's not exactly a calming finish but whatever. The video is cool too. Here is Rebel Girl.

So in conclusion, it was a really cool exhibit. I knew a lot about the later musicians, but not a lot about the early ones. There were a lot that I didn't mention, but they were all very interesting. Like other women in the 19th century, they had to fight to make their voices heard, and we can still hear them today how poetic was that. But they made good music, about important issues, and it was a good exhibit. If you can go see it before January 6th at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, you should because it's pretty interesting. The end.

I watched my pretty much all time favorite movie for about the millionth time today, and as I was finishing it, I thought, "Hey now I know what to write for my blog post." Yes yes so today our topic is the best movie ever, CRY-BABY YEAH. So there's greaser (they're called drapes) named Wade "Crybaby" Walker, and he's played by young Johnny Depp (swoon). And then this square, Allison Vernon-Williams (Amy Locane) is all I'M SO TIRED OF BEING GOOD (direct quote. as I said before, I've watched this movie a loooot), and she runs away but her boyfriend is mad, you know. Typical.

 It's directed by John Waters, and is a satire of Grease and musicals like Grease and the 1950s. It makes fun of the stereotypes of the super goody two shoes kids, and the burning-cars-for-fun kids too. Also, I really like the music. It's good, man. Since this is technically a review, I shall now review it. See this movie, this wonderful movie is a really good satire, but it also manages to still be a good movie. It's got character development, and some wonderfully camp and also some just wonderful normal lines. And there's a great car chase (sort of) scene, and then a great prison break scene so that checks some boxes. The acting's also pretty overdramatic and great which is as it should be.

So yes that is pretty much all I have to say about this movie, and it is fabulous, and you should watch it, and here is the trailer and it's great.

Yes ok and now this is the end.