Under The Sun

Under the Sun is a 2015 internationally co-produced documentary film, directed by the Russian filmmaker Vitaly Mansky. Taking viewers deep into the heart of North Korea—a place often shrouded in speculation and mystery—this film delivers a rare and fascinating insight into the everyday life of this typically insular nation. The film stars Lee Zin-Mi, an eight-year-old (at the time of filming) North Korean school girl, whose life serves as the focal point of the narrative around which the series of events unfurl.

The entire film revolves around young Lee ZIn-Mi and her journey towards becoming a member of the Korean Children’s Union, a political coming-of-age that marks her transition from child to a dutiful and seemingly happy citizen of the regime. Yu-Yong and Hye-Yong play the roles of her 'perfect' North Korean parents who are portrayed as model citizens, exemplary workers, each employed at reputable establishments. The powerful portrayal of the family offer a distinctive exploration of the mechanisms that uphold the North Korean government’s control over its citizenry.

But what sets Under the Sun apart from other documentaries about North Korea is not merely its setting or subject but the unique, uncanny method of its creation. Director Vitaly Mansky was given unprecedented access to film in the country, but with the strict condition that every scene was to be scripted and approved by North Korean officials. Every detail, from the choice of locations to the very lines uttered by the subjects, was dictated by the state apparatus supposedly to create an auspicial representation of the life in North Korea.

Acknowledging this constraint as a part of the film’s narrative, Mansky cleverly turns a would-be limitation into a telling awry. Rather than pretending to show the ‘real’ North Korea hidden behind the pre-approved scripts, Mansky uses the state-sanctioned set-ups to instead call attention to their own artifice and manipulation. The film’s achievement lies in the striking fact that while it operates within censored boundaries, it manages to subtly capture the cracks in the façade, the hesitation in the actors' voices and the tension that pervades the unscripted moments.

Mansky chose to keep his cameras rolling continuously, capturing not only the scripted scenes, but also the painstaking process of their construction. Often, scenes are repeated multiple times under the stern direction of a North Korean minder off-camera. This innovative approach effectively portrays the lived reality of propaganda, shaped and reshaped until it bears the 'perfect' image designed by the state.

Undeniably, Under the Sun is shot in a unique manner. With barely any background music, a majority of the sound design is natural, practically diegetic, contributing to the film’s implicit honesty about its own inescapable mediation. It also adopts a slow-paced, atmospheric style. The camera lingers on the faces of the characters, on the mundane details of their artificially constructed everyday lives, thereby maximizing the visceral feeling of quiet distress beneath the façade of joy and patriotism.

In making Under the Sun, Mansky faced numerous challenges and risks, not only during the filming process, but also post-production when the movie was banned in Russia. Despite its controversies and the backlash, the film presents an intriguing borderline absurdist document that refuses to conform to the conventional documentary traditions.

In conclusion, Under the Sun is a film that imparts a thought-provoking glimpse into the contradictions and complexities of life in North Korea. It successfully uses the government's attempt to control its narrative as a prism to expose the inner mechanisms of a regime that exercises total control over its image, both domestically and internationally. This film is recommended for those interested in a comprehensive, yet nonlinear, depiction of the most secretive nation on earth.