Mads Brügger

Yes, I know this is not a photo of Mads Brügger, director of the incredible and hilarious documentary 'The Red Chapel'. But he did write down the name of his next project, 'The Quatraro Mystery' and beneath it his autograph. Let me rewind a little ...

 

'The Red Chapel' screened in the 2010 New Directors New Films series. It documents Mads Brügger's clever and cunning infiltration into North Korea under the pretext of cultural exchange. Along with two Korean-Danish comedians, Brügger was granted tightly-controlled access to a 'virtual reality' version of North Korea that was scrubbed clean of all signs of repression, persecution or dissent.

 

Also conspicuously missing from their tour were disabled North Korean citizens - an absence frequently addressed by the film and by Jacob, one of the Korean-Danish comedians who is himself disabled, and describes himself as a 'spastic standup comedian'. The North Koreans reviewed Brügger's footage every night for objectionable content, but were apparently unable to decipher Simon's speech (subtitled in the movie) and didn't discern Brügger's true intentions until the movie was completed and on the festival circuit.

 

You can read more about this amazing movie elsewhere but here's some notes from the Q&A with Mads Brügger at the MoMA that followed afterward:

 

- Ms. Pak, the North Korean minder who was presumably a member of the secret police, encouraged the Korean-Danish comedian Simon (the bigger one) to move to North Korea to become an action movie star! Apparently he possesses features that conform to the North Korean ideal of beauty. Simon declined. This conversation was excluded from the final cut due to length

 

- Brügger is unaware of where Ms. Pak is, or what happened to her once the North Koreans once they realized they'd been tricked. Asked whether he felt any guilt for using Ms. Pak, and possibly endangering her life, Brügger responded that he attempted to absolve her of any culpability by stating very clearly in the film that she was completely faithful in her duty and devotion to the state as their guide, and was not party in any way to the film's ultimately scathing, accusatory angle

 

- The North Korean censors objected to footage of a statue of Kim Il Sung that made him look chubby

 

- Brügger consulted Danish experts on North Korea on what North Korean humor is like. Apparently, they like fart jokes. So Simon and Jacob incorporated farting into their original standup routine

 

- Also learned from the experts on North Korea: Hennessy is the preferred brand of the Dear Leader

 

- Brügger: 'Being in North Korea is like shock therapy for paranoids' - spent most of the final two weeks of filming drunk (I'm trying to avoid giving away an astounding scene toward the end, but you'll know it when you see it)

 

- Asked further about how he managed to gain access to film in North Korea, Brügger said he believed his resemblance to Lenin helped in negotiations

 

- Once the North Korean government realized they'd been deceived, they sent a message (a fax, if I recall correctly) to Brügger, saying that The difference between man and animal is conscience. And you have no conscience (snap!)

 

Anyway, I couldn't find my little moleskine notepad so I doodled notes onto the back of my program from Good Friday service. After the Q&A I approached Brügger to tell him how great I thought the movie was and what is he working on next? He said he was investigating the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of a high-ranking official of the European Union. The project is called 'The Quatraro Mystery'

 

The what? I said, reaching for a pen

 

Here, I'll write it down, offered Brügger (see picture)

 

I asked him if he'd autograph it also and he said sure. In the photo above, a New Directors New Films program guide/booklet is resting on top of the program (I didn't have this until after the screening)

 

'Love is like a pineapple / sweet and undefinable'

 

--- Best documentary I've seen in 2010 so far ---

Done