Platypuschow
With all the ongoing debacles with North Korea in the news I figured this would be a fantastic time to watch The Propaganda Game.A Spanish made documentary with very impressive and rare access to the country it pulls back the curtain (Or at least as far back as the officials would let it go) and shows both sides of this remarkable place.The trouble is that both the west and North Korea seem to be playing the The Propaganda Game and it's extremely hard to know what is true and what isn't. My personal opinion is that it's a combination of both, but this documentary is quite unbias and gives you a chance to decide for yourself.US government, the Korean government, ultimately the real victims in this appear to be the citizens of Korea themselves as I find their chosen lifestyle monstrous but again how much of it is true and how much is staged? The Propaganda Game is well worth a watch and though heartbreaking it is very eye opening and a fantastic piece of documentary film making.Always wondered why Korea didn't kick off over Team America World Police (2004) but did regarding The Interview (2014). Perhaps a leader with less sense of humour explains it?
Ersbel Oraph
This is an obscene movie made by a poor quality team. There are others productions from the same decade, most of them better. So this is not even rare. The lack of footage is compensated with many scenes filmed in Europe. And the producer is simply lazy or the Spanish have became overnight world specialists in North Korea. Finally all the talking heads drum their kind of propaganda oblivious to the facts and everything becomes a cheap TV report about what one or another might think about a given situation. What makes everything even worse is that the Spaniards are way too happy to enjoy the protocol and prefer to rip off old documentary footage than risk their behinds into filming the people. Something most American Documentaries do.Contact me with Questions, Comments or Suggestions ryitfork @ bitmail.ch
saratxy
Let's put this out of the way - everyone knows that an organised tour of the DPRK is one massive facade. For a filmmaker to gain entry and keep that much footage, the film absolutely had to showcase happy citizens, sprawling buildings and new technology. How could you expect anything else?What makes this film brilliant is what he did with the footage.Aptly named "The Propaganda Game", director Álvaro Longoria takes us with him on tour of North Korea's capital Pyongyang. What I really enjoyed about this film is its rawness - You get to see everything from Longoria's eyes and decide for yourself what is real and what is not. It felt like a very personal experience. The deception of the State and its effects on its people are nothing short of terrifying. How could they act so naturally if everything is staged? Could it be real? Are they really so brainwashed? Are these people suffering? How? I think some people who have seen it are confused, judging from some other reviews. I urge you to see this film without searching for concrete answers. Longoria presents many opposing arguments but there really is no telling the extent of North Korea's deception or on the flip side, the warping of information in Western media (I mean, The Guardian is pretty ridiculous.) I suspect Longoria himself does not know what to make of it. You simply can't find that kind of information on North Korea; experts themselves do not have the full truth nor do they all agree with each other. Such is social science. There is simply too little information, and the film captures that wonderfully. Speculating would be unwise.The film leaves you rather unsettled, but I believe that was the intended effect. How could we be comfortable when a system as oppressive as the DPRK's is still surviving to this day? Its message, if there must be one, is that the people of North Korea are suffering - and that instead of looking at them as ignorant fools living in a joke of a nation, we should be sympathising with them and condemning such cruelty.It is a film that focuses on the people, and is a much needed take on the subject amongst all the hoo-ha surrounding North Korea.
thestaudtfamily
The N. Koreans aren't only held in by a physical wall that separates them from freedom, they are held in by a wall of propaganda that hearkens to the age of the 3rd Reich. This film did an amazing job of showing how creepy and false the front of this country really is, you can almost feel the dying millions clawing desperately for food or safety right behind the satirically sweet school children singing praises to their crazy, delusional dictator. This film allowed the rest of the world to see the thinly placed veneer, that somehow Kim Jong Un actually believes will fool educated and aware people outside of his regime. First tip was that the camera men are always escorted and observed by government assistants. The veneer is so impossibly thin at times you are left wondering why the hell they spent the money to construct fake museums, colleges and "public places" instead of just feeding the starving masses. Truly the scenes shot in these places are disturbing, in a "happy free" country citizens would be clamoring to visit museums, colleges and gyms but there is a deathly quiet & newness to all of these places that gives away that they are in fact just constructs to fool the western world. I felt the facade, I felt the lie, I understood that the filmmaker was politely playing along to show just how crazy the militant propaganda really was. The fear and uncertainty in the eyes of every person interviewed or even caught on a passing camera,was heartbreaking. One man being interviewed actually broke out in a cold sweat, to what seemed to be a very routine and unimportant question by Western standards. The "modern" apartment with the flat screen was the biggest joke of all. While their military is using 70's and mid 80's media technologies, some random citizen has a flat screen and access to Western free thought movies!? I got tired of the N. Korean diplomat using the word "socialist" in place of totalitarian dictatorship, who does he think he is fooling? It is not democratic when the people think that the leader is god, or can read their minds. Or builds a fence to force them to stay in for that matter. That man was a very low down, slimy slug of a human and I haven't been able to decide whether he was just a forced actor that may have been trying work off some sentence, or just a really huge sellout. He didn't speak the language which seemed really unconvincing. I just get that vibe from him that he is as fake as the scenery. Another poster called him a clown, I think his issues run much darker than they do comical. I spent a good deal of the movie wishing he would trip and fall in front of a bus. All in all it was a very enlightening film, that made me feel emotional and frustrated for the brainwashed and ignorant citizens of N. Korea- they are ignorant in the very true sense of the word- they have NO idea that the west is not evil, that even our poor have access to education, food and shelter that free thought and speech is real thing available to every class. The one thing this movie did for me that others had not was that it showed me what a dangerous man the Supreme Ruler is. Here we make fun of him, we pretend that he is an idiot, a clown, a farce, but all the while he is killing thousands of people that rely on him. He may be all those things but he is one hell of a dangerous farce and I hope within my lifetime he will be dealt with accordingly and the people of his beautiful country given freedom and hope. There is no way not to get something out of this documentary, it was skillfully done and achieved it's purpose of not telling the viewer that the Regime is bombasting the outside world with propaganda but by letting the N. Koreans do it themselves. It was a really engaging film.