GROUND 0101 (The Fall Issue)

being accused of making a film that was
less than objective, or decline and have
the door close on us?
In the end, we decided to go for it. Over
a year, we made four trips to Pyongyang.
They were all logistically difficult to arrange.
It was hard to know if a visit would
be our last. Still, things got easier with
time. Our subjects became less reserved,
our guides, more flexible. We learnt that it
was important to keep an open mind, to
demonstrate that we respected our hosts
and to let them show us, rather than to
demand to be shown.
Some people have suggested that our
subjects were merely putting on an act.
Maybe they were told to be on their best
behavior, but we hope that by being patient,
by stepping back, and by being as
unobtrusive as possible, we were able to
capture moments when they were their
genuine, unadulterated selves. What is
the truth? What is real? All we can say
is we opened a door, walked in, and observed.
Did we succeed? The audience
will just have to watch and decide.
Lee and Leong recognize these filmmakers
as producers of propaganda. Yet,
they also recognize them otherwise as
well. What began as a covert curiosity
changed into a desire for overt access
and direct documentation of the policies
and the people—the two aspects of social
relations they trace through many of
their films—the networks and the individuals
situated by those networks. And,
they begin by documenting their own
documentation—the rules and regulations
that articulated their position in the
endeavor, their collaboration and cooperation
in their exercise on the work of filmmaking.
They express fear over jeopardized
objectivity and authenticity. Then,
they shift their perspective to consider
other stakes in the project. Negotiation
makes their own tack possible, allows for
their own patient and open approach to
documentation. And in the end, their recognition
turns from the others they filmed
(or stopped filming when asked) to the
others who will see their films. They hope
they have depicted something given rather
than taken; they hope it is a difference
the audience can glean from the film they
have made.
In the end, Lianain’s films maintain
this sense of hope and openness toward
the different strategies others deploy. It
is a very specific hope and an agreement
with their subjects and audiences to recognize
and respect the work of documenting
embodied labor and the embodied
labor of documenting work. Questions
of navigating and negotiating institutions
and regimes of surveillance and articulation
combine with concerns over social
justice and the productive and affective
work of filmmaking to highlight humans
in entangled in structures that situate
them physically, psychologically, socially,
culturally in local circumstances within a
neo-liberal global society. Currently, Lee
and Leong are at work on two investigative
documentaries they’ve described
as “sensitive.” I know they mean these
two current projects might offend or upset
folks and so need to be kept quiet to
protect those involved. But, I also know
these films, if like the others I have seen
over the years, will appreciate and attend
to the feelings and situations of everyone
involved. I look forward to seeing them.