Anna Broinowski - Aim High in Creation! - A One-of-a-Kind Journey Inside North Korea's Propaganda Machine

“If we understood the content, there was the danger we would get to know the American mind-set and lifestyle, which are undesirable elements,” explains Jimmi. “We just watched the scenes to learn character behaviours.”

Jimmi loves acting, but says North Korean performers never use the word “love” to describe what they do. Instead, they say: “Fulfil your acting faithfully.” He thinks my Kim Jong Il–style film could have a major impact: “North Koreans know about the US, China, and Japan, but they think of Australia as an island far away. There is less hatred towards Australia than to the US. If you make your film from an Australian perspective, you will help change North Korea. But it is very important you do it a certain way.”

Jimmi speaks slowly, making sure Monica translates exactly what he says: “Your actors must not act skin-deep. Develop a bond with the North Koreans. Immerse yourselves in their lives. You know the problems they face. You are on a mission, to create a better understanding of them. Above all, do not use images of North Koreans produced in South Korea. That will make your film a mockery, and breed hatred. Mockery is not art. Art is something that generates shared feeling. It is enough that you faithfully make a film in the North Korean style. It will generate worldwide interest.”

Jimmi beams at me, full of hope. I have no idea what he’s said, because Monica has stopped translating. She is wiping back tears: “I feel so stupid,” she sniffs. “He has been through so much. Your film must open a window. For all of us.” Jimmi says something softly to Monica, and her eyes widen in horror. “He left North Korea because three of his acting friends were executed,” she says. “He knew he was next.”

Without my prompting, Monica asks Jimmi to sing. He thinks for a beat, then shuts his eyes. His voice is low and beautiful, and unutterably sad. “The long and winding road, a cruel smoke like the blowing wind… when I walk alone.”

On the outskirts of Seoul, where the skyscrapers give way to battered industrial blocks, is a dirty building with a broken elevator. Its four floors are derelict, their blown-out windows facing a shabby gas station. At the top of the stairwell, there’s an iron door. It leads onto the roof and a breathtaking view of Seoul—all glass and telephone poles, stretching to the distant hills.

A small chipboard hut sits on the roof, wedged between a satellite dish and a boiler. This is the studio of Sunmo, the only defector who won’t let me film his face. He waded across the Yalu River into China ten years ago, looking for something to eat. He then trekked south, all the way to the jungles of Laos, where he got lost. He would have died if some villagers hadn’t found him and taken him to the nearest town. He wanted to keep walking to Thailand, then stow away on a boat to South Korea, but he was too sick. So he handed himself over to the Laotian police, pretending to be a South Korean tourist. It worked. He was arrested and sent to Seoul.

Sunmo is an artist. In North Korea, that means a propaganda artist—there is no other kind. As a young boy, Sunmo saw Kim Il Sung, whom he revered like a god, praising some children for their artwork on TV. He desperately wanted Kim Il Sung to praise him too, so he started to draw. He got into art school, but when he graduated, he was not deemed skilful enough to be given the supreme honour of painting the Leaders’ portraits. So he drew them in secret, then burnt them. In North Korea, the Leader’s image is sacrosanct. Even folding a newspaper so the crease falls on the leader’s face can send you to the gulags. If Sunmo’s portraits had been discovered, he would have been charged with treason and sent to Camp 14. He might even have been shot.

Given all this, I am stunned by the lightness and beauty of Sunmo’s canvases. They are masterpieces of technique and expression, rendered in delicate pastels. They celebrate the North Korea Sunmo left behind with his parents and one sibling, a life he says was “filled with happiness and pride.” Sunmo lights a Marlboro and tugs down his baseball cap, deadpan cool: “Of course I want to show my face. I am very good looking. But if I do, my family will be caught and put under enormous hardship.” He is definitely attractive—not just physically, but because of his sly humour. His beautiful paintings are undercut by a cynicism that is both funny and disturbing. This is North Korea seen by a North Korean artist, from the other side of the mirage. It still looks like propaganda, but it feels like anarchy. Sunmo is the North Korean Banksy.

On one canvas, a grinning schoolgirl throws her arms wide, haloed by a pink carnation. Underneath is a bold red slogan: Let Us Grow Up on Freedom Mountain and Sing the Song of Joyful Paradise! On another, eleven identical pink-cheeked schoolgirls link arms over a bright yellow slash: We Are All a Bunch of Happy Kids! A smaller painting shows a toddler on tiptoes, reaching up to pull down a curtain. Through the fabric, a single word: Open . There is an evocative image of a tiny old woman bicycling up a steep hill, dwarfed by a sack on her back. A word appears through the snowdrifts: Escape . Two canvases capture the reunification dream that all Koreans share: in one, a North Korean girl spins inside a hula hoop with a South Korean girl in a pink onesie: Where shall we play? In another, a sexy woman in hot pants walks arm in arm with a North Korean policewoman, made up like a fifties movie star: Let’s Dance!

I ask Sunmo if he still paints the Leaders, and he pulls out a circular canvas of Kim Jong Il smiling his Prozac smile through a bushy hippie beard. It’s the North Korean Jesus. “He wasn’t a very good Jesus, was he?” Sunmo muses, showing me more: Kim in Sony headphones and a red jumpsuit, pirouetting on one foot. Kim in a hospital bed, gazing at a schoolgirl—who pours Coca-Cola into his drip feed. There are bigger canvases of North Korean soldiers in Ray-Bans, pointing guns: Let’s Destroy the American Imperialists! Let’s Liberate the South! They are impeccably painted, but in Banksy’s stencil style: graphic reds and blues over bold pink slogans.

Sunmo loved North Korean movies. He misses them deeply. As he speaks about them, I remember the Camp 14 escapee Shin Dong Hyuk in a documentary I saw—standing in a supermarket in Seoul, staring at rows of food with glazed disinterest. Shin confessed he missed the simple routine of the gulag—where each day was a blunt challenge to survive. Shin managed to find real happiness in North Korea, just like Sunmo: “We were forced to watch movies continuously, whether we wanted to or not. I adored them. Especially ones that evoked patriotism and loyalty to the state. My favourites were Nation and Destiny , A Star of Chosun, and A Sun of the People .”

Sunmo sings a song, low and soothing. I don’t know which movie it’s from, because our camera has broken down in the heat of the studio. There is no footage to translate. All I have is my memory of Sunmo swaying as he sings, lost in a gentle reverie. I’m struck by the resilience of the human spirit: its capacity, even in hell, to find joy.

MONICA AND I DRIVE AT BREAKNECK speed around Seoul, using her satnav to find ATMs that will covert dollars to won. Monica has shown a tender side during our three days together, but she’s merciless with money. Tonight is our last interview. I’d hoped it would be with Choi Eun Hee, the actress Kim Jong Il kidnapped in 1978. But after repeated attempts to come up with an appearance fee Choi will accept, she has announced that she is “incapacitated” in a private hospital without a phone. Monica has got me the next best thing—an interview with Choi’s South Korean agent. He also wants a fee, and Monica is making damn sure I pay it, in cash, before I fly out.