If you’ve ever wondered what defecting from North Korea would feel like, “Beyond Utopia” straps you in and pulls you through the mountains of China, the jungles of Vietnam and the rivers of Laos.
This visceral experience is achieved by utilizing smartphone video footage taken by mission activists and brokers who led one North Korean family out of the most dangerous and isolated country on the planet.
But “Beyond Utopia” delivers more than remarkable footage of the Roh family’s escape. For context and perspective there are several more narratives from other defectors, primarily by a current best-selling author and a mother attempting to help her son defect.
Banished into desperation
The Roh family (consisting of a grandmother, a mother, father and two young daughters,) fled when they learned that they were on a banishment list, as family members of a defector. Since banishment entailed being left in North Korean mountains with no provisions, the family risked crossing the border into China before they were evicted and abandoned.
The Roh family in a Laos safe house waiting to continue their journey to Thailand and ultimately South Korea.
As the planet’s only country that offers no internet connectivity, the North Korean government can construct a world where its destitute citizens are told that they live in paradise. The Roh family authenticates this surreal reality at a humble safehouse in Vietnam. Resting before miles of jungle on foot and crossing the Mekong River in canoes, the Rohs are most surprised at faucets with running water, elevators and meeting Americans who aren’t demons intent on wanton murder.
Led by Pastor Seungeun Kim of Caleb Mission Church in South Korea, the Roh’s circuitous escape route snakes along the vast southern border of China, through Vietnam and Laos to Thailand. This is necessitated by the 38th parallel that divides North and South Korea. Along this heavily armed border are approximately two million landmines and a North Korean policy that rewards guards who shoot defectors with cash and vacation time.
Living as science fiction
Alongside the Roh family, author and fellow defector Hyeoseo Lee offers a wider lens into how completely North Korea’s three dynastic dictators enthrall a nation. Through systematic “education,” one newspaper, one radio station and one television station, Kim Il Sung then his son Kim Jong Il and now his grandson Kim Jong Un are portrayed as deities. Not a whiff of opposition is tolerated and mere suspicion of critical thought results in arrest or worse. (Sweeping, re-occurring purges included Kim Jong Un’s uncle, who was a high-ranking military officer before being publicly executed.) Virtually every North Korean is completely cut off from the outside world.
“Imagine waking up one day and realizing that you were born on a completely different planet and everything you learned was a lie. Your country’s history was so fabricated and everyone around you was brainwashed. The heroes you worshipped were actually monstrous villains,” said the author of “The Girl with Seven Names.” “This is like the plot to a science fiction novel but it’s the insane reality for North Koreans like me.”
After the Roh family bushwhacks their way through Vietnamese jungles, the father shakes his head with exhaustion and compares his life in North Korea to living “like a worm.”
When North Korea’s economy went into freefall following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Hyeoseo Lee recalls literally seeing people “dying in the streets” of hunger. (Global relief agencies estimated that between 2.5 and 3.5 million North Koreans died in a famine that lasted from 1994-2000.)
Hyeoseo Lee describes a society where, in the midst of a famine, government officials would routinely swipe white-gloved fingers across the surface of mandated portraits of the Dear Leaders. Evidence of dust would result in “severe punishment.” According to defectors, there are no trials for those accused of being resistant to indoctrination. Instead, they are tortured into confession and sent to labor camps.
When the terrible choices run out
The third narrative strand of the documentary’s braid is the story of a mother trying to reunite with her son after her own defection a decade ago. With the help of Pastor Kim, Soyeon Lee hires brokers in North Korea to first help her son cross into China. Then, after he is caught and returned to North Korea, she continues to pay brokers to ease her son’s treatment and sentencing.
“Beyond Utopia” stands as one of only a few films that can boast a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Hailed an extraordinary achievement in documentary filmmaking, this Sundance darling deeply impressed both reviewers and audiences. Many were surprised that the film was not nominated for an Oscar this year. One “Beyond Utopia” critic, however, took the position that director Madeleine Gavin and the “talking heads” of the film ignored the impact of American sanctions on the North Korean economy with an un-nuanced bias against the country’s leadership.
But, all told, by witnessing the Roh family’s escape and hearing first-person testimonies about this “hermit” nation, “Beyond Utopia” delivers a stark and illuminating glimpse into the world’s most hidden society.
