Across the Line tells a tale of North Korea

Across the Line tells a tale of North Korea

One of the more unusual documentaries in this year's International Film Festival is Across the Line which offers a rare glimpse of life in North Korea. Ian Llewellyn talks to one of its producers, Nick Bonner, who is visiting New Zealand as part of the festivals.
Film producer Nick Bonner's years of work in North Korea gave him the unprecedented access that allowed him to tell the story of four American soldiers who defected there during the 1960s.
Across the Line centres on James Joseph Dresnok or Comrade Joe, who in 1962 left his post on the heavily fortified Korean border and walked into one of the most closed societies on Earth.
Besides Dresnok's remarkable story it also provides a look at everyday life in North Korea, as well as an insight into the nature of propaganda.
Bonner, originally a lecturer at Sheffield University, moved to Beijing to study Chinese landscape architecture in 1993.
At the time there were easier contacts with North Koreans and he was invited to take a group of people to Pyongyang.
From that first trip evolved Bonner's company Koryo Tours, which specialises in taking individuals or groups of people on escorted tours into the reclusive country.
Across the Line is his third movie, made in conjunction with director Dan Gordon.
The first - The Game of Their Lives (2002) - is the story of the North Korean World Cup soccer team who in 1966 performed the greatest shock in football history by knocking Italy out of the competition.
Bonner said during the filming of this he had started to hear talk about four American defectors living in North Korea who were still alive and well.
"We were told it was just not possible to see them," Bonner said.
The pair's second film - A State of Mind (2004) - involved nine months following two North Korean schoolgirls during their year-long preparation for the Mass Games - the world's biggest choreographed extravaganza with over 100,000 performers.
"We gradually built up access and trust. It's amazing what can be achieved, even if they don't like what you do as long as you don't lie," Bonner said.
During the filming they were told that they could interview Dresnok and after two years of negotiations they were granted unrestricted access to him and his North Korean family.
For Bonner it was like talking to someone who had been on the moon for 40 years.
"This big North Korean came in with this big black jacket, sat down and said 'Hello boy, I hear you wanna hear my story' and I realised it was the American defector."
Besides telling Dresnok's unusual story, the film also blows some preconceptions of what Pyongyang would look like.
Instead of being a grey grim Stalinist nightmare, it looks more like Washington.
Grand statues of heroes and sweeping causeways to show a city that was rebuild from the rubble that was left behind by the bombings during the Korean War.
"Pyongyang is without doubt the showcase of North Korea, and as a landscape architect, is one of the most beautiful settings you can have for a city," Bonner said.
"It has two great rivers flowing through it, incredible styled architecture that is iconoclastic as well as Brave New World stuff."
The film also shows the propaganda war fought by both sides to portray the other as barbarians intent on raping, pillaging and destroying their precious societies.
The North Korean government controls the media very tightly and there is little information about the outside world besides what the powers who be decide.
Beneath the propaganda inspired hatred and fear of America, there are people living their lives.
"Life goes on there ... they are people, they are far more concerned about getting their kids to the right school than the overall threat of going to war."
The film is no glorification of the North Korean life.
Dresnok lives in a basic block of apartments and without overt reference it is clear North Korea is going through economic crisis with a poor power supply and food shortages.
"There is the frog-marching military, but there is also another side to life in North Korea as well."
The film also portrays a grim side to life in the United States.
Dresnok's path towards North Korea in post-war America is one of little hope, poverty and despair.
"Joe was always on the run ... until he went to the place where he could no longer run from, North Korea ... Bam that was the end of the line," Bonner said.
He does not think Dresnok actually realised the consequences of the decision to cross the most heavily fortified border in the world to become a traitor to the place of his birth.
Dresnok dominates the film, physically big, he is also the main story teller. It is a fascinating tale of how he was first treated as a spy, how he became a movie star in North Korea, his relationship with his three other countrymen and the tension between him and one of them Charles Robert Jenkins.
The story of how Jenkins became the only one of the defectors to return to America after he was interviewed by Bonner also creates one of the highlights of the film as Jo Dresnok is told of the accusations of abuse laid against him.
"They certainly weren't friends," Bonner said.
"I think Joe had been like the top dog amongst the defectors and Jenkins took that off him ... there was a lot of tension there and personal antagonism."
Bonner and his crew were escorted at all times during filming.
Bonner had expected demands for some sort of censorship right, but to his surprise there was none.
"The greatest difficulty was getting them to understand why wanted to see certain shots, which they believed we were taking to show them in a bad light."
Bonner said the film tries to be as balanced as possible.
"We are really just wanting to hear their story, we are observational as you can be ... we like to say we give both sides."
That style of film-making though made it hard to sell the film to the American market.
"There has been a dumbing down and they don't like it when it is not clear who is good and bad."
Bonner says one of the ironies of that and Jo Dresnok's life is that if he had remained in America, there is little doubt he would have been a "good old Southern boy" voting for George Bush.