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North Korea (aka the Democratic People\u2019s Republic of Korea, or DPRK) remains a fascinating oddity because of its pariah status among the international community for its ongoing nuclear ambitions, and for being a rare example of a country controlled by a totalitarian dynastic family, applying Orwellian mechanisms to control its people from crib to grave, and the unending mystique of what it\u2019s like living in a hand-crafted 1984<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n Glimpses of its massive, Soviet-styled architecture and monuments, propaganda newsreels of heroic songs slapped over montages of its smiling leader, and tales of terror from citizens who defected \/ escaped add to the allure of a world trapped in its own bubble that has yet to burst, and may not, given it remains a potent force on the continent; it may lack the power of neighbouring China, but there\u2019s no sign its regime is weakening and moving towards an open society.<\/p>\n North Korea\u2019s film output rarely makes its way to North America \u2013 the Euro-DPRK co-production Comrade Goes Flying<\/strong> (2012) has yet to appear on video after premiering at TIFF and subsequent rare screenings<\/a> \u2013 and any western\u00a0news pieces on aspects of the country feature footage that must be approved by the government prior to release, making Vitaliy Manskiy\u2019s Under the Sun<\/a><\/strong> (2015) unique: the director let his camera run before and after takes, showing government handlers directing the \u2018ordinary family.\u2019<\/p>\n What began as a co-production with full government approval turned into a risque venture that could\u2019ve landed its director and crew in deep trouble, and it\u2019s no wonder Manskiy has been branded an enemy of the state, as he recounts in the BBC interview archived on Icarus Films\u2019 DVD.<\/p>\n It\u2019s an amazing film for what\u2019s rarely seen \u2013 elegantly composed shots of Pyongyang\u2019s architecture, the innards of buildings, and even seeing distant glimpses of the massive Ryugyong Hotel<\/a>, a bat-like monstrosity consisting of 105 floors of which construction began in 1987, froze in 1992 after funds ran dry, and whose construction restarted in 2008 with aide from an Egyptian telecom. It’s\u00a0a grand hotel for international visitors and commerce in a country that trusts no one, especially foreigners. During its abandoned state, the building was no longer referenced in official media, even though its massive bulk and rotting concrete superstructure was impossible to miss.<\/p>\n I reviewed Manskiy\u2019s prior film, Pipeline \/ Truba<\/a><\/strong>,when it premiered at Hot Docs 2014<\/a>, and that work shares the same stylistic approach in Under the Sun<\/strong>: beautifully composed wide shots, and a fixation on small details revealing subtext that\u2019s rarely stated by subjects or the director himself. Pipeline<\/strong> is available nowhere, and it\u2019s a classic example of the mass of documentaries that premiere at festivals and then vanish\u2026 perhaps because most either don\u2019t address sufficiently timely, hot button topics\u2026 or they just get lost among more recent sexier films in the large documentary marketplace.<\/p>\n Under the Sun<\/strong>\u2019s locale and controversy guaranteed its distribution and availability, but it is unfortunate that little of Manskiy\u2019s other work is available in North America.<\/p>\n As for other glimpses of North Korea, there\u2019s really just YouTube which contains an archive in flux, with western and DPRK propaganda pieces appearing and disappearing, sometimes subtitled and sometimes not. It all adds to the mystique of the Hermit Kingdom, or the hermetically sealed oddity that is perhaps the world\u2019s last remaining totalitarian regime in the classic Communist mold \u2013 brutal and immutable.<\/p>\n