Crossing the Line

A British documentary about US Army defector James Joseph Dresnok (born 1941) currently living in North Korea after having defected during the 60s.

This is a very strange story. Americans defecting to Nazi Germany is strange, but somewhat understandable. Americans sympathizing with terrorists and moving to Afghanistan is hard to understand, but it makes sense on a certain level. This one is stranger still... defecting to a country that not only speaks a foreign tongue and has different views, but restricts freedom? Who purposely wants to live in a prison? And the man does not comes across as mistreated or brainwashed in any way. Clearly something very odd happened, and he may not be completely truthful (the tale of his first wife being a kidnap victim is a story in itself)... who is James Dresnok?

In 1962, the 20 year old PFC James Dresnok was serving in the demilitarised zone between North Korea and South Korea when he just headed across in the northern side of the border. Captured by the North Koreans, Dresnok became the first of several American GI's to "defect" to the communist North and went on to be enormous propaganda tools to the regime of the time. This film looks back on the life of Dresnok in North Korea and his importance within that regime.

It is hard to deny that this film will have limited appeal as one does have to wonder how well known the Dresnok defection is outside of those from the US who were at a certain age in the early 1960's. I certainly knew nothing of him but was drawn to the film by the chance of learning more about the mostly inward and secretive North Korea. As such the film is quite interesting because it does give an insider's view while also having that insider being a westerner. However the film does not just use Dresnok as the way in to the country but he is the focus of the film and this is both a strength and a weakness.

It is a strength in the way that he is a complex but likable character who is an interesting focus but it is a weakness in the way that my interest was not really with him in the first instance. This does leave us with an interesting film but one with a rather limited appeal, meaning that I did find it to be rather too long and occasionally hard work when it is focusing totally on people who I have no knowledge of or vested interest in.

Overall then a solid documentary that is reasonably interesting despite the material having a limited appeal whenever it moves into specific territory (which is the majority).

In my experience, the best bio-pics are those in which I identify, or at the very least, sympathize with the subject of the film. CROSSING THE LINE is the very opposite of this. James Dresnok is a most reprehensible character. His decision to defect has little or nothing to do with the large moral defects in his character. He comes across as a thug and a bully. I suppose one could overlook some of this due to his unfortunate background, however many have had personal histories such as this, and not sunk to his tragic fate. The excessive smoking and drinking almost seem like a personal vendetta by his 'better' self against the 'evil' that is in him. He is really in the process of self-destruction, and rightly so. In spite of this, however, I think that CROSSING THE LINE is a fine film. After viewing the movie, I could not empathize with Dresnok, or even make a case as to why he took the path that he did. But, Daniel Gordon did a superior job illuminating this disreputable individual. We are allowed to see this man 'warts and all', and the film-maker goes out of his way to be evenhanded. It would have been so easy, and probably tempting, to just cast Dresnok as a two-bit villain.

This film was another job for Dreslock to perform for his North Korean masters.

Clearly he was a troubled and insubordinate soldier who defected rather than get in trouble for leaving his post with a document he forged. But what an interesting and different life he then had.

North Koreans live in perpetual fear under such circumstances it is just easiest to believe the state line. Dreslock is a typical example.

He also shows how you can take someone who would have amounted to nothing in the US and turn him into something quite interesting. Someone who speaks Korean fluently lectures at Universities etc etc....

What would be really interesting is for him to show up now in the US and do a second film.

To judge him from this film is unfair...utter the wrong word and he or his family would face death or worse.

The real losers in all this was the North Koreans no one believes their propaganda in the West. Think millions starved while this dufus was swigging down Johnny Walker Black Label. It is still fascinating.

Unwilling to accept responsibility for his actions, an American soldier in South Korea named "James Joseph Dresnok" abandons his post and walks across the demilitarized zone into North Korea--with no intention of ever returning. After a brief interrogation, he was sent to Pyongyang and was essentially confined to a small house with a couple of other deserters pending a decision on what to do with them. Used primarily for propaganda purposes, after four years in this communist paradise, all four of them seek asylum in the nearby Soviet Union embassy. Apparently, not wanting these poor specimens of mankind all that much, they are quickly returned back to their North Korean captors to live out their days in a manner they so richly deserve--with some living longer than others. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that, even though James Dresnok was given every opportunity to make himself look somewhat presentable to polite society, I found nothing about him that was admirable or worthy of respect. Neither, apparently, did one of his colleagues who had nothing good to say about him after spending more than 30 years with him. Be that as it may, although the main character was rather loathsome, the documentary itself turned out to be quite informative, and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.