N.Y. Times (Sort of) Reviews “Kimjongilia”

The reviewer, Mike Hale, dismisses the documentary “Kimjongilia” as the result of “a morbid obsession with Mr. Kim and the hellish country he oversees, shared by escaped North Koreans and Western filmmakers,” which is an attack on the film’s choice of subject matter, not its artistic merit. Hale begins his review, in other words, wishing that filmmakers would pay as little attention to this subject matter as the New York Times’s news bureaus and its editorial board have. Any judgment of the film’s quality is strictly an afterthought.

Speaking as an authority on this particular morbid obsession, it’s a sure thing that no one will ever diagnose the Times with it. The Times has distinguished itself among major U.S. newspapers for a nearly complete absence of reporting about North Korea’s death camps, famines, or the misery Kim Jong Il has inflicted on his subjects. Its North Korea coverage is easily the worst of all major U.S. newspapers. Worse than USA Today? Yes, even worse than that.

I haven’t actually seen “Kimjongilia” myself, so I won’t join the argument about the film’s artistic merits. I’ll simply observe that this very brief review hardly does that much, although its opening attack on the film’s choice of a topic reveals volumes about the reviewer’s political bias. Other reviews — not to mention the comments to Hale’s review — reached the opposite conclusion. These views, and the very fact of the film’s selection for Sundance, suggest that you might reach a different conclusion if you see “Kimjongilia” for yourself.