‘Beyond Utopia’ Review
There are so many atrocities happening in the world on a daily basis that receive significant coverage from news outlets across the world, highlighting injustices and poor conditions that emphasize systems of power that have no care for the citizens they’re supposed to protect. With a 24-hour news cycle dependent on attending to public interests while also delivering the news that seems relevant to them, it’s unsurprising how little North Korea is on the minds of people around the world. Operating unchecked and in the confines of their own country, Madeleine Gavin’s newest film, Beyond Utopia, is a gripping examination of North Korea’s disturbing reign of power. By following an attempt to reunite a family separated by the border between South and North Korea, Gavin portrays the harrowing conditions people face when trying to escape inhumane conditions under a dictatorship.
Focused primarily on Pastor Kim Seungeun’s work to facilitate the escape and relocation of North Korean citizens who wish to defect, Beyond Utopia depicts the terrifying ordeal North Koreans need to confront in order to find a better life. Taking place just before COVID-19 and focused on a handful of cases that Pastor Kim is working on, we get a sense of the similarities between cases as well as the grim realities that keep families apart simply because of an upbringing that is designed to keep residents of North Korea unquestioning and fearful of the world outside their borders. By using real footage from the filmmakers, operatives working to facilitate the journey, and other participants, Gavin crafts a taut thriller where the stakes couldn’t be any higher and the sense of urgency irrefutable.
It’s the way the film plays out as if it’s in real-time, that gives Beyond Utopia that ticking clock momentum. The film never spends long stretches with any single subject, constantly interjecting with historical context and fleshing out what is happening in North Korea and why it’s so difficult to get people out of there. For starters, it’s a case of not understanding that what is normal for those living in North Korea is actually worse than what is outside their borders. The film plays up the cult of personality that Kim Jong-Un and those previously in power have shielded themselves with, turning themselves into gods unable to be wrong and every human rights violation committed perceived as justifiable by his own supporters - which is everyone living in North Korea, lest they be exiled or imprisoned.
Interspersed throughout the film is the use of talking heads, primarily with the inclusion of Lee Hyeon-seo, whose memoir The Girl with Seven Names highlights a story of survival as she defects from North Korea and tries to evade capture from the North Korean government. Just as in her story, Beyond Utopia emphasizes the fact that getting from North Korea to South Korea is a perilous task, underscored by the fact that the border separating the two countries is impossible to cross due to landmines stretching from coast to coast. Instead, many refugees make the journey across the Yalu River into China and then have to maneuver incognito through multiple countries before they are able to breathe a sigh of relief. It’s the complicit nature of North Korea’s neighboring countries that makes the journey far more difficult than initially meets the eye.
Seeing the journey unfold through a single family’s attempt to move themselves - consisting of a mother, father, two children, and their grandmother - across multiple countries, with the help of Pastor Kim and several brokers, explains why few make the effort. It’s either stay in North Korea and suffer, or try and escape only to potentially be caught and suffer again - or worse: be executed for attempting to defect. That consequence has a trickle-down effect on family members who don’t attempt to escape North Korea as well. It all compounds to create a system of oppression that is difficult to imagine trying to escape from, let alone succeeding. The added wrinkle of relying on brokers, who essentially treat the humans they’re transporting as money as opposed to people, creates uncertainty that only reinforces beliefs that everyone outside of North Korea is deceitful and treacherous.
It’s easy to ignore the fact that Gavin’s film does not offer much of a critique of the society that defecting North Koreans are entering, mainly because it makes it painfully clear that the Hell they’re leaving is far worse than whatever they will face outside of North Korea. It’s a film that tries to sympathize with its subjects and understand why they may hesitate to leave such poor conditions, and that for some they can’t imagine life outside of North Korea. A secondary plotline throughout Beyond Utopia involves a mother trying to help her son defect which is an infuriating throughline but has an understanding of why it plays out the way it does. To most, it will seem irrational, but Gavin’s film does an excellent job of illustrating the circumstances and mindset of any individual attempting to defect and why that decision never comes lightly.
As a glimpse into what goes on within North Korea’s borders, Beyond Utopia offers startling first-hand accounts and an enlightening picture of the day-to-day struggles accepted and maintained as “normal.” They’re anything but, and yet, Gavin’s handling of the material provides a level of immersion that makes an entirely different way of living clear and understandable, but no less harrowing. What makes Beyond Utopia frustrating is that it’s a documentary about something happening today, and there’s very little that feels like it can be done to help. It’s not a film that has a reasonable call-to-action and instead serves more as a reminder that North Korea is currently home to the most human rights violations in the world - and that is not publicly discussed enough to make change feel viable.
“Beyond Utopia” made its PBS and PBS App debut on INDEPENDENT LENS on Monday, January 8, 2024, at 10 p.m. (check local listings).
