The scarf in the film is connected to the “fear of the colour red” (or “red complex”) — a historical trauma in South Korea. Ever since the Korean War, the colour had been contaminated with the constant threat of the Communists in the North. People who wore red shirts risked being told off; a red carpet in a hotel room might upset people.
The first step taken toward recontexualizing the colour happened at the 2002 World Cup, when it was appropriated by the Red Devils — the South Korean team’s devoted fans — who took over the streets with their red shirts and their drumming and their jubilant cheers.
OUR BUS IS back on Pyongyang’s streets and we see members of the Youth Corps everywhere. They march in neat rows, wearing bright red scarves that stand out against their white shirts. From the age of three, children are schooled in ideology. From eight to fourteen, they wear the red scarf. When they turn fourteen, they trade it in for a pin featuring Kim Il-sung’s portrait. The scarf is proof of their direct connection to the Kim Il-sung Socialist Youth League.
* * *
MOST PEOPLE IN both North and South Korea know the folk tale that the movie Pulgasari is based on. But Kim Jong-il wanted to rewrite the story. To understand the meaning behind Pulgasari, you have to revisit the original — Godzilla. Gojira, as it is called in Japanese, is a character born of the nuclear age. The original 1954 movie is neither kitschy nor ironic, even if the special effects wouldn’t exactly impress an audience in the digital age. Godzilla is often automatically classified as a B-movie, but in fact it was one of the most expensive films ever produced in Japan, with the equivalent of a budget of sixty-five million dollars today. Godzilla is a dark, melancholic elegy with deliberate symbology and sophisticated sound design; it is an allegorical film with political content.
The movie opens with a scene of a fishing boat that is annihilated by a beam of light, a reference to an event that happened in March of that year: the Americans testing a 1.5-megaton hydrogen bomb at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. The Japanese tuna boat Lucky Dragon 5 was nearby and was covered in radioactive debris. The crew fell ill with radiation poisoning and the incident, which was called the “tuna scare,” set off an international crisis. A fear of radiation poisoning spread throughout Japan once more.
In the film, Godzilla originated in the Jurassic age and has been living at the bottom of the ocean. But when his habitat is destabilized by the Americans’ test explosions, the homeless monster absorbs the radiation and begins to wander. The navy deploys depth charges and the military erects a high-voltage wire along the coast. But nothing can touch Godzilla. The monster’s carapace glows and a radioactive heat ray shoots from his mouth, melting buildings and houses.
Japanese audiences recognized the references to the recent past in the film’s images: for them the smoking ruins of Tokyo the day after Godzilla’s rampage were a reminder of the devastating bombing of the city at the end of the war. The images of burned people at the hospital and children being examined with Geiger counters brought up fresh, painful memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Finally, a naval ship is sent out to sea for the last stand against the monster. The military is using a new super-weapon created by a scientist named Dr. Serizawa, who chooses to die with the monster. The final scenes are devoid of triumph. One doubts that Godzilla is the last of its kind. If the nuclear tests continue, a new Godzilla will rise from the sea.
EIJI TSUBURAYA, THE famous special effects master at Toho Studios in Tokyo, was responsible for the look of the Godzilla monster. All of Tsuburaya’s characters, including Rodan (the terrifying flying lizard), Mothra (a giant moth), Booska (the predecessors to the Teletubbies), and Ultraman (the humanoid alien in stylish red-and-silver costume), are beloved by the Japanese and have been popularized through film, video games, comic books, TV series, model kits, and toys. Even Tsuburaya himself has been cast as a collectible figure dressed in his signature style: sunglasses, pork pie hat, white shirt buttoned up to his neck, and a pen in his breast pocket. The only thing missing is the eternally burning cigarette.
But none of Tsubaraya’s other imaginative figures can ever measure up to Godzilla, “Japan’s most famous international film star,” memorialized as a national monument that stands in Ginza. Godzilla is the most enduring series in film history — twenty-nine films have been made over a period of fifty years.
WHEN TSUBARAYA CREATED the monster, he’d already had a long career as a cinematographer and a director. Toho Studios was created in 1936 by Ichizo Kobayashi — a railroad magnate, politician, and bigwig in the entertainment world — and Tsuburaya was hired one year later. During the war, Tsuburaya was summoned to the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service. His assignment was to make instructional films for fighter pilots, and he himself became a skilled aerobatic pilot. The attack on Pearl Harbor had unleashed a euphoric wave of nationalism, and it was thought that a big film about the honourable blitz would convince the Japanese people that total victory was nigh.
Five months after the attack, Tsuburaya began working on an incredibly advanced reconstruction of the events for the film. Using photographs supplied by the navy as reference, he built a detailed, grand-scale model of Pearl Harbor in the backlot of Toho Studios, recreating the destruction: the American battleships set alight by bombs and the spread of black smoke over the harbour.
After this, Toho became drawn farther into the military’s propaganda machine, to the point where their operations merged. The worse the war went for Japan, the greater Toho’s mission. Near the end, they were even given access to fighter planes fresh from the factory. In desperation, the studio created pompous, heroic films that deviated ever more from reality.
After the war ended, the Americans found the film stock featuring Tsuburaya’s sophisticated set design. They thought they were looking at actual footage of the attack. Some scenes were even incorporated into their own documentaries about Pearl Harbor. Tsuburaya’s special effects were so advanced that the Americans made sure he was fired from Toho Studios. Considering his detailed knowledge about the geography of Pearl Harbor, they concluded he must have been a spy during the war.
After a few years Tsuburaya returned to Toho Studios, but initially he was forced to operate incognito. After the American occupation officially ended in 1952, his name could once again be listed in the film credits. When work started on Godzilla he was resurrected as a special effects specialist.
Tsuburaya put an extraordinary amount of energy into making sure everything in the film was perfect. The Tokyo that he created for the movie was to 1/25 scale, and the buildings had complete interiors so that they would collapse realistically. Tsuburaya wasn’t happy with his first model, so after “Tokyo” was destroyed by the monster, everything had to be rebuilt from scratch.
The pioneering actor who was given the illustrious job of bringing the monster to life was Haruo Nakajima. He lost twenty-two pounds during the shoot of the first film — after every take they poured his sweat out of the costume. Nakajima pulled on that rubber suit for eighteen years, from 1954 until 1972. He fainted numerous times from the poisonous fumes of burning kerosene-soaked rags. Once he was nearly electrocuted, and another time an avalanche of crushed ice fell on him, to name just a few of his hardships. Like Tsuburaya, Nakajima embodied the Japanese culture of duty. When a person is given a task, he takes that task seriously, burrowing deeper and deeper into his obligations. The years pass by and he faithfully goes to the office until the day he retires. The monotony seems to have polished him until he sparkles, and it is this sparkle that he leaves behind.
Nakajima’s successor was Kenpachiro Satsuma. The former steelworker, whose actual name was Kengo Nakayama, began his monster career playing Hedorah (the Smog Monster) in Godzilla vs. Hedorah. Satsuma was never given any speaking parts because of his rustic Kyushu accent. In 1984, when Toho was planning on making a lavish new remake of the original Godzilla, Satsuma was given the honour of wearing the 265-po
und costume. Through horseback riding, karate, and judo, he kept trim and was able to keep it on for ten minutes at a time. Previous stuntmen had fainted after two. Satsuma would be faithful to the rubber suit until 1995. He arrived at the Pulgasari shoot in North Korea straight from the set of Toho’s Godzilla remake.
* * *
THE BUS DROPS us off at the Koryo Hotel, which is supposed to be the most luxurious tourist hotel in Pyongyang. Our group is worn out after the long trip back from Kaesong. The Värmlanders, Ari, Bruno, Trond, Andrei, the fighter pilot, and the others take a seat in the lobby. The tattooed baker has a stomach ache. He hasn’t been able to go to the bathroom for a whole week. We and the Bromma boys take the elevator up to the panoramic bar on the forty-fourth floor. Elias and Oksana tag along, too.
Oksana is indefatigable, but Elias is no longer enthusiastic. He is shrouded in disillusionment and fatigue. At the start of the trip, he spoke of finding work in Pyongyang as an interpreter or at the Swedish embassy. Now he says he’s given up on those plans. This country is far too crazy, he says. It was worse than he could ever have imagined. And it has been impossible to make contact with a single regular North Korean.
We are the only guests in the bar. Photography is strictly forbidden. The view is of the Forbidden City, the walled part of Pyongyang where only the highest echelon of the elite live. Within these walls are four luxurious multi-family complexes, and stores with goods that no one else can afford to buy.
In the mid-1980s, the Russian author and North Korea expert Andrei Lankov studied in Pyongyang and wrote one of the few existing pieces of reportage about daily life in North Korea. He became interested in this particular neighbourhood and observed the youths that sometimes walked out from behind its walls: “They wore impressive clothing or Kim Jong-il suits. Their faces radiated contempt for those who were inferior to them, the poor and malnourished. Even the obligatory Kim Il-sung badge was worn as a fashion statement. The children of nobility wore the badge highest up on their lapels.”
This is where the families in the party’s upper echelon live. The Bromma boys come up with ruses to distract the wait staff so we can take a picture of the area. But what does this part of town say about Pyongyang? Which world capitals don’t have exclusive, walled-in neighbourhoods, and most far more extensive than this one? There is much that is upsetting and grotesque in North Korea, but faced with the Forbidden City, it’s hard to work up any ire. During our trip we’ve seen the same contempt in our own group that Lankov saw in the faces of the youth as they walked out of their sheltered world.
* * *
GODZILLA’S SUCCESS IN Japan created a new genre, the kaiju movie, or monster movie, which quickly spread to neighbouring countries. In 1962, the South Korean film director Kim Myeong-je contributed the first version of Pulgasari to the genre. The film itself was lost, but two movie posters surfaced in later years, proof that it did in fact exist. The story was based on the same Korean folk tale as Shin Sang-ok’s Pulgasari, but in this earlier version a martial arts master is murdered and reborn as iron-eating monster.
Shin Sang-ok’s version opens on a blue-hued studio environment that’s supposed to depict a settlement in the 1300s, during the Koryo dynasty. The villagers live simple and virtuous lives. The men don’t need to adhere to the five hairstyles that are on offer today; instead, they sport black manes with headbands, and they fill in their eyebrows and wear mascara. They are reminiscent of how Native Americans are represented in John Ford films. The women move demurely, wearing traditional, pastel-coloured hanboks.
The village smith has been thrown in jail after the discovery of a stockpile of iron tools that he was hiding from the feudal lord’s army, which was collecting all metal to be forged into weapons. Before he dies in prison, he makes a small figure out of rice. His daughter finds it among his garments and takes it home as a memento. Consumed with sorrow, the heroine absentmindedly pricks her finger with a needle while she’s sewing. A drop of blood lands on the rice figure, which she keeps in her sewing box. But she doesn’t notice the burst of red light that emanates from the model at this life-giving moment.
The figurine springs to life, stands, grabs a needle, and gobbles it up. When it finishes all the needles, it takes a giant leap and lands in the girl’s arms so it can devour the needle she’s holding.
Pulgasari grows rapidly, and soon joins the villagers in a revolt against the feudal king and finally storms the imperial palace. But the monster becomes far too demanding. Its insatiable appetite for iron makes it increasingly difficult to keep Pulgasari satisfied. The heroine martyrs herself in order to annihilate the beast.
It is understood that Shin Sang-ok had great difficulty working with the special effects department to try and make Pulgasari look like a giant. One solution was to take close-ups of the monster’s feet, of which he had large-scale models built. When Pulgasari’s full size is revealed, Shin inset a flickering, blue-toned projection of the monster that the actors moved in front of.
Shin spared no expense for the final battle scene, employing thousands of extras and creating real explosions that made earth rain over the actors on the battlefield. The revolutionary message is underscored by the rebels’ red banners. Enormous cannons with muzzles cast in the shape of dragons’ mouths are fired from the palisades of the imperial palace. Pulgasari catches the cannonballs in his mouth as if they were breath mints and spits them back out so the palisades crumble.
Pulgasari’s ability to deflect any attacker’s assaults is a reference to Godzilla’s radioactive heat ray, which incinerates houses and cars. When Pulgasari is let loose on the imperial palace in slow motion, it’s clear that the two monsters are cut from the same cloth, not just because Kenpachiro Satsuma is the actor inside both costumes, but also in the choreography and lust for destruction.
YOU COULD SAY that Shin’s Pulgasari is a criticism of Kim Jong-il’s power over the people, that the emperor symbolizes the despot who lives a life of luxury while the people are crippled by hardship. In one important scene, women collect bark from the trees in order to add filler to their diet, foreshadowing the poor harvest and famine. But this critical perspective is unthinkable in North Korea. The heroine is the Mother of Joseon, the united Korea. The oppressors are the capitalists in the South, or alternatively Japan, or the United States. The fight is against them. And the nuclear warheads should be pointed at them. The weapon is created internally, with earth, rice, and blood. Its nourishment — iron that has been enriched in the forge — represents uranium. The weapon is transformed and refined so that it possesses even greater devilish power. In the end, only the spirit of the people can disarm the weapon. But it’s not a total disarmament. One spawn is born, and carries with it the potential to grow and come to the aid of the North Korean people when it is needed.
A WELL-KNOWN METHOD of unifying people is the demonization of others. In South Korea, schoolchildren were taught that Kim Il-sung had horns growing out of his forehead. On children’s television programs, North Korean leaders were depicted as wolves that drained their countrymen of blood. On North Korean propaganda posters, Americans are depicted with claws and paws. An oft-repeated epithet is that Americans are “monsters.”
Monsters are used to create fear and a physical boundary that you have to be careful not to cross. The feral part of the creature represents the impossibility of integration. But it takes a monster to fight a monster. Like your enemy, you too enter into a pact with a beast that will come to your aid if needed, and so the monstrous machinery of war is created.
North Korea’s nuclear weapons program was created at the exact same time as Pulgasari. In 1985, the country completed construction on its first nuclear weapons facility and, though the program wasn’t officially acknowledged, the film was Kim Jong-il’s acknowledgement in parable form. Twenty-one years later, in 2006, the nuclear weapons test was a fresh, unequivocal acknowledgement. The monster had long been fed in Kilju�
��s underworld, and now he took the opportunity to display his power.
* * *
SOME OF US in the group are going to see a second performance at the 1st of May Stadium, a mass gymnastics recital. This time we smuggle our video camera in.
The same wall of schoolchildren take their places in the stands, holding their colourful sheets of paper. The children have learned to focus all of their attention on one single person, a director who uses numbers and command flags. Everything is about synchronization. The goal is to become one with the masses, to work as one single organism; only then can you create the world’s largest show.
The rehearsals are as important as the recital itself. By drilling in the movement pattern and coordinating their bodies with the other players over the years, each individual is disciplined to be part of the collective movement. B. R. Myers asserts that conformity is a tribute to racial purity: “These games are not the grim Stalinist exercises in anti-individualism that foreigners . . . often misperceive them as, but joyous celebrations of the pure-bloodedness and homogeneity from which the race’s superiority derives.”
With lightning speed, a gigantic landscape materializes that makes us gasp: a mountain wrapped in the night’s mist, with the sea in the background. The red glow of the sinking sun casts orange and violet reflections on the sharp peaks. In the foreground, raw emeralds and chrysanthemums appear without shattering the illusion. In a flash, the scene is gone. A new picture unfolds and the field is flooded with thousands of schoolgirls in red dresses with hula hoops.
When we watch the footage afterwards, we discover small deviations in what had seemed like perfectly synchronized movements. The camera has caught details that the naked eye couldn’t possibly detect in the enormous stadium. One girl loses her rhythm; another misses a step while jumping rope. The rope gets caught around her waist and she looks hopelessly alone in the masses.
All Monsters Must Die Page 16
