TheAgitator.com
Vice in North Korea
Monday, June 9th, 2008VBS.TV is the web video venture from the folks who publish the great Vice magazine.
They managed to sneak a camera into North Korea, which resulted in a 14-part series. I’m up to episode five. First episode below.
That is a very freaky video series. Watch the one about the dam; it’ll get your blood boiling.
Oh, and my hat is off to the guy for having the balls to perform “Anarchy in the UK” to his guides/secret-police minders.
If you think sneaking a camera in is hard, try sneaking on OUT!
not to take anything away from this, because I find it amazing and these guys have gigantic balls, but the camera does not seem to have been sneaked in. He said that they will let very primitive point and shoots with no zoom capabilities in, and that seems to be what they are using. It is clear everyone knows there is a camera. He mentions getting in trouble for pointing it at the wrong things and getting threatened.
That said, what an abysmal place. I feel for those people. I did like the line “North Korea has threatened us with nukes. Where did they get nukes? They don’t even have electricity.”
Will have to watch the second half later…nice find Radley.
I was stationed up near the DMZ in 2ID. If you think it’s freaky in the daytime, try at 2 a.m. marching around warrior base while the propoganda speakers are blaring while mine fields are scattered all over the place (some shifting positions in heavy rains, just to keep it interesting). I mean, it beat going to Iraq, but it definately wasn’t a theme park.
Chris,
I think the “camera” he was referring to was the small point and click/video camera the narrator had, not the hidden one his buddy had. I doubt they would have been happy if they knew they were making an anti-N. Korean documentary. Anti being anything not showing them in a good light.
I love the part where Kim Jung Il is STILL President even after he is dead!! Good stuff. Oh yea, and no electricity 4tw!!
Just a couple of points…
These guys did not sneak their camera into North Korea. The North Koreans knew they were “journalists.” The North Korean consulate in Shenyang, China (from whom they obtained their visas) is hard up for cash, so quite a few jouralists pay for visas there, athough they are required to visit as “tourists” on paper.
What’s with that accent at the end? Sounds more like a fake russian accent than a fake korean one.
NK,
Was the whispering purely theatrics then?
[...] Radley links to another great North Korean expose by Vice Magazine. It’s broken up into fourteen parts. I [...]
Thank you for sharing this. I just finished Ep. 5 (Tea Girl). I didn’t think I could despise governments any more, but that did it.
And talk about balls; going into a country where everyone has grown up being force-fed anti-US propaganda.
It was a nice series. I think the punk karaoke was a hoot, especially the look on the faces of the Koreans. Priceless. And I am willing to bet that is how Americans are viewed by a lot of the world: Horrible Pseudo-punk Karaoke singers….