The Red Chapel

Film crews have been trying for decades to get access into North Korea to make a movie about what life is really like under the dictatorial rule of Kim Jong-il. Maybe if they had employed a spastic Danish comic, like director Mads Brügger did for this hilarious movie, they might have had a better chance. The movie follows a cultural exchange program between Denmark and North Korea, spearheaded by Brügger and his co-stars (and co-conspirators), a two-man comedy team called The Red Chapel. In exchange for performing their ‘act,’ the trio get a chance to tour the country and meet its people. Under the tight control of the government, that means they get to see what the government wants them to see and meet who the government wants them to meet. Since they have to turn over their footage at the end of every day to be edited by the government, too, there isn’t much chance to say much about what they see. That is, of course, unless you let a spastic whose speech is almost untranslatable to the officials, do the talking.