Sundance Film Festival follow up: THE RED CHAPEL
If you haven’t heard of THE RED CHAPEL, you’re not alone. The Danish docu-comedy made a big impression at last year’s festival, bringing home the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize for best documentary, but got little play elsewhere. It’s a shame, because it’s everything you want a good documentary to be. It’s approach to exploring the terrifying state of the North Korea government is clever, warm, human and really funny, and when was the last time someone offered you their critique of North Korean politics in a way that made you laugh?
“Fusing elements of activist filmmaking with theater of the absurd,” THE RED CHAPEL follows director Mads Brügger and two Danish/Korean comedians – one a self-proclaimed “spastic” – who travel to North Korea under the guise of a cultural exchange. North Korea, however, isn’t big on culture or the arts, and government officials are sent to monitor all their rehearsals, even instructing them on how best to appease a Korean audience.
How Brügger turned his experience in to a comedic documentary speaks to his talent as a director. “People don’t know that North Korea is Nazi Germany times ten,” he said. “It’s pure evil.” Brügger came up with the idea for his documentary after making DANES FOR BUSH, in which he traveled around the world posing as a supporter of George W. Bush. The project ended when he was almost arrest in New York, but he didn’t give up on his Sacha Baron Cohen-style of role-playing documentary filmmaking, he just had to find the right subject. “It dawned on me that it had to be a dictatorship. I became obsessed with Korea. It’s such an extreme society.”
Since the film’s release, Brügger has worked as a writer/host of an experimental Danish talk show, but you get the sense that he’s lying in wait, planning his next big idea.
Be sure to satisfy all your festival needs with the latest buzz, top stories, and celebrity interviews from Sundance Channel’s coverage of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.
