Camp 14 TIFF 2012 Review & Interview

Posted 11 years ago by myetvmedia

Directed by Marc Wiese, Camp 14: Total Control Zone is more than a documentary, this amazing testimony leads us to the abyss of mankind, to dehumanization! The movie has very effectively used animation to recreate some of the incidents at the camp. There are also interviews with the perpetrators of the torture at the camp that are very chilling. It is a remarkable story by a very brave and courageous boy Shin Dong-hyuk who miraculously escapes life in Camp 14.

North Korea is isolated and hungry, bankrupt and belligerent. It is also armed with nuclear weapons. Between 150,000 and 200,000 people are being held in its political prison camps. Very few born and raised in these camps have escaped. But Shin Dong-hyuk did. Spoiler ahead.

Shin was born in the Camp 14; A camp for political prisoners where his parents who have a life sentence there, were forced to get married by guards, allowing them to spend 5 nights together a year. They managed to have two sons, or rather should I say, two slaves. In the context of Camp 14, being a mother or father has no meaning. Shin does not know what it means to love a father or a mother, what is family, what love means. He cannot feel emotions. He has no friends or relationship. In Camp 14 prisoner’s stand against each other, denunciation is common practice; you are on a 24 hours survival mode. Violence and brutality are the only human relationships.

Director Marc Wiese provides a vivid sense of Shin’s ignorance for solidarity, compassion, and humanity.  His special effects and the usage of black and white drawings to reflect on the landscape, the climate, the malnutrition and how terror was maintained are to be given high praised. Wiese interviews a former camp guard and an ex-secret policeman to complete a picture of staggering inhumanity.

North Korea, early 2000’s, Shin does not know or barely knows that there is a world outside. He knows just to read and count. He does not suspect the existence of any objects that make up our daily lives: mattress, pillow, bar of soap, toaster, money, credit card, phone and Internet. And the most amazing thing of all is that the prisoners live in ignorance of their own country and worship of the Great Leader.


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Camp 14 TIFF 2012 Review & Interview

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Interview w/ director Marc Wiese

Trailer

Gallery

  • Camp 14 - Total Control Zone
  • Mit seinem Vater wird Shin zum Hinrichtungsplatz gebracht
  • Shin als Redner bei einer Menschenrechtskonferenz in Genf
  • Camp 14 - Total Control Zone
  • Camp 14 - Total Control Zone

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