Banned director hopes to reunite with N. Korean family

Right, a scene from "Goodbye Pyeongyang (Pyongyang)" by Yang Yong-hi, who is barred from reentering North Korea for candidly documenting her family there. Her niece Son-hwa holds Yang's hand while saying goodbye, as the director prepares to leave on the bus after visiting Pyongyang.
/ Courtesy of Kino-Eye DMC

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By Lee Hyo-won

Filming stems from a basic human desire to immortalize elusive memories, to capture lasting stories. But for Yang Yong-hi, filming was a more urgent means of keeping her family together - to unite their lives split between North Korea and Japan. The director's audiovisual love letter for her family, however, ironically deprives her of seeing them again.

Yang's 2005 directorial debut "Dear Pyongyang" traced the flight of her father, a Jeju Island native who fled to Japan during the colonial period (1910-45), where he adopted North Korean citizenship and became a high-ranking official. He sent his three elder sons to Pyongyang, so they could escape local discriminations against "zainichi" (Japanese term for long-term Korean residents of Japan).

But this resulted in a costly separation. Yang and her parents, who remained in Osaka, would reunite with them through occasional visits to the North Korean capital.

As the film swept awards at international festivals, from Sundance to Berlin, North Korea barred Yang from reentering the country.
When ordered to compose a statement of apology, she wrote back in the form of a second work - "Goodbye Pyeongyang (Pyongyang)".

High cost for art

"As an artist, I made a film anticipating consequences, so I cannot rescind it. I made my second piece as a gesture, that I refuse to apologize", Yang told The Korea Times in a Seoul cafe, Friday.

"It's ironic - I made a story because I miss my family but I cannot see them because of it. But I yearn for them all the more and look forward to seeing them even more".

Her new movie, she says, is an arduous love letter to her niece Son-hwa.

Over a period of 13 years, "Goodbye" trails the young girl, who leads a relatively privileged life sporting Mickey Mouse accessories and using Hello Kitty stationary. Contrary to images of starving North Korean children, she eats nutritious meals complete with ice cream for dessert.

But many of these are luxuries provided via care packages from Japan - for the past 30 years, Yang's mother had been sending everything from anti-depressants to disposable hand warmers. What seems like an ordinary middle-class kitchen is shadowed by a strikingly different reality - the director's narrations reveal how, for example, the tap water runs for only two hours a day.

Unembellished scenes capturing ordinary household items and products achieve artistic ends, like still-life paintings of capitalist extravaganza that adopt new meaning in the communist country.

Constantly giggling, joking and occasionally shying away from the camera, Son-hwa seems like a typical kid - but one is reminded that she lives in a different world, as she tells her aunt to turn off the camera so as not to waste the battery.

"My niece is constantly fascinated by me - how I waste water and tissue. We observe each other with great interest. My niece would ask me to turn off the camera in order to ask the simplest, most harmless questions like what plays I have seen in Japan. She is aware of how the camera can be a fun plaything but also something very dangerous.

"But I feel like Son-hwa is my soul mate. She is the only daughter with brothers who are much older than her, just like me. While growing up in Japan, I attended a North Korean school and was thus exposed to two different cultures.

"Likewise my niece has lived in Pyongyang all her life but she is aware of another world - she sings propaganda songs in schools about being happy about what you have, but she is aware of the material wealth outside. She lives in a different world yet experiences a duality similar to what I felt growing up", she said.

Ordinary family portrait

The film is first and foremost a deeply personal portrait of a family, and the footage enables a separated family to somewhat share their everyday lives.

"My aim was not to talk about North Korea or the Korean community in Japan. I wanted to above all tell a very personal story about my family, and touch upon universal values of love and hope. But you do of course learn things about North Korea and 'zainichi'. I wish viewers will be able to reflect upon the importance of family through my movie".

An undying optimist, Yang is sure she will meet her family again someday - "My mother smiles more in difficult times, and so do I. My niece also managed to laugh during a blackout. Optimism runs in our blood".

"But I do worry about my family in North Korea. When I first started receiving media attention for my film I worried it might have a negative influence on them. But I've changed my mind - I am all the more proactive in promoting my film in hopes that it will protect my family".

Her mother, who is still allowed to visit Pyongyang, always worried about Yang. "My mother knows the reality of things in North Korea, but she keeps her silence because she needs to see her sons. She said at least I should be able to freely speak my mind".

North Korea redefined

Just as New York City evokes the Statue of Liberty or Seoul calls to mind beef dishes, the director hopes through her film people can associate Pyongyang with an image other than that of Kim Jong-il.

"One American who saw my film at the Berlin Film Festival said he would be reminded of Son-hwa when he thinks of Pyongyang. It's a much better face than Kim Jong-il's, don't you think?" Yang laughed.

"You can despise a regime, but you shouldn't despise individuals living under it. I once hated my father's ideology and rebelled. But I learned that you can get along, have meals together and love someone possessing different values". Yang herself adopted South Korean citizenship in order to travel more freely.

Son-hwa, now 19, is an English major at Kim Il-sung University. "We send Son-hwa English dictionaries now. She wants to become a teacher, which is a very realistic career goal. But she really dreams of traveling the world with her aunt", she said.

"My family cannot travel to Seoul, Berlin or New York. But through my movie people around the world are able to meet them. I hope audiences fall in love with my niece onscreen".

For her next film, the director plans to foray into fiction. But the story will be based on her personal experiences as a zainichi. "It will be about a youth torn between the family's North Korean ideology and Japanese mainstream culture. People will say I'm doing the same thing, telling my family story".

But in fiction, the actors will resume their own lives after shooting - unlike documentaries where featured subjects go on with a reality that is far from the freedom of expression embodied by the screen.

"Goodbye Pyeongyang" (also known as "Sona, the Other Myself") is now showing in theaters across Korea. All ages admitted. Runs 82 minutes. Distributed by Kino-Eye DMC.