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This documentary is very important. It helps to show the manipulation that must go on daily in North Korea. The constant reminders to "be more joyful" or to act "with patriotism" demonstrate this. It is well worth watching, if for no other reason that to see how Orwellian the world can become if allowed.

But by the end of the film, I felt sympathy for everyone involved. The children, the parents, and even the handlers.

While the children and parents are being directed by the handlers, the handlers are following the directions of those above them, and so on. These handlers are simply people who want to do their jobs and avoid punishment, the same as everyone else. You can see it, especially in one scene towards the end, when they are tucking Zin-mi into bed. The North Korean director looks as tired as anyone else, and as downtrodden. Everyone has a role to play, it seems.

The film is conflicting because you have to wonder what could happen to these people for their failure to censor this film adequately. Or for their failure to act appropriately patriotic in some of the takes that the censors didn't want us to see. We have to hope that the honesty of this film didn't lead to anyone coming to harm.

First, to the people decrying this film as mere propaganda, I say you are either: 1. North Korean agents trying to put a happy face on a horrible situation, or, 2. are just plain dumb. if you honestly think the DPRK is a paradise, I triple dog dare any of you to pack up your Che Guevara t-shirts and move there.

If you actually pay attention to the film, you will see many, although sadly, not all, of the people look sad, frightened, beaten down, or all 3.

Places like North Korea are true hells on earth and how ANYONE can defend a regime such as this is beyond my ken.

A foreign crew is somehow given permission to shoot in North Korea. The term "documentary" is a bit far-fetch here, since everything is actually staged by an escort crew that supervises, scripts, directs and rehearses every scene being filmed.

If you want to see what George Orwell's NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR would look like if it became real life, watch this documentary.

Watching it, I got strong vibes of movies such as EQUILIBRIUM, METROPOLIS, SLEEPER and THE PRISONER. Basically, every movie which depicts life in a state of dictatorship becomes a reality here and Orwell's book is the bible. All the elements from his book can be found here: Pictures of the leader at every corner, a constant state of war with military at every corner and as the center of every class in school, brainwashing the minds of people since an early age and basically turning them into human robots that would obey everything they are being told to do and learning how to hate the Japanese and Americans, production is always told to be getting "more efficient", TV constantly broadcasts programs about the leader, his military and war, and you hardly see anyone smiling.

This is life in a constant state of fear and it's a living nightmare.

The movie is far from perfect – many scenes are way too long and repetitive, tighter editing could have made wonders here – but its value lies in the achievement of showing a surreal regime that is almost impossible to believe that still exists in the 21st century and showing how "reality" can easily be fabricated.

Good cinematography and excellent musical cues by Karlis Auzans.

6.5/10 Highly recommended

Greetings again from the darkness. There is an old episode of "The Twilight Zone" that has always stuck with me. It starred Bill Mumy (who later became well known as Will Robinson in "Lost in Space") as a young boy with God-like mental and telekinetic powers. The entire town was afraid of him, so they constantly acted in ways to make him believe they were happy and appreciated him. Memories of that show came rushing back as I watched this documentary from Russian director Vitaly Manskiy. We outsiders know little about life in North Korea (it's known as 'the Hermit Kingdom'), though the film seems to confirm what we've been led to believe: it's a country filled with citizens either living in fear or living with acceptance of their plight (or both).

Director Manskiy was contracted to make a movie about daily life of an ordinary family in Pyongyang. Two "escorts" were assigned to him, a state-sponsored script was provided, and his footage was reviewed daily. When the project was dissolved, Manskiy assembled the pieces … and added the secretly saved snippets from when he kept the cameras rolling between takes. The result is a documentary on the attempts of a Communist government to stage an illusion of perfection. It comes off as a foolish propaganda effort to convince the world that North Koreans are a happy people. What we see on screen convinces us otherwise.

At the center of all this is 8 year old Zin-mi and her family. If you thought The Monkees were a pre-fab TV version of The Beatles, this shows what true manipulation is all about. Zin-mi's parents are given new jobs for the movie version. Rather than a print journalist, her father is given a job as an executive at a garment factory; and rather than a cafeteria worker, her mother is presented as working at a soy milk factory. Additionally, the family is moved into a nice apartment and then provided with meal time conversation, and even told where and how to sit and stand.

Zin-mi has joined the Children's Union and the whole community is preparing for Day of the Shining Star – the national holiday celebrating the birthday of Kim Jong-Il; keeping alive the memory of their supreme leader who died in 2011. During these preparations, we see the clean streets and no-frills buildings, as well as the brainwashing that occurs during presentations and classes … the Japanese are labeled scoundrels, while Americans are cowards. The lingering images, and faces of those posing for photos, can't mask the emptiness of the individuals.

The film reinforces more than enlightens, and it's more a rare snapshot of this society than a global perspective. Still, we can't help but feel saddened for the people as their lines are fed to them with directions like, that was "too gloomy", and, do it again with "joy". No proof of the brutal regime is presented, but it's obvious freedom of thought is not encouraged. The correlation becomes all the more ironic when it's recalled that the title of that Twilight Zone episode was "It's a Good Life".

The European and Russian filmmakers were invited by the North Korean government to make a documentary that glorified their country, but the filmmakers managed to subvert the intent of the film by keeping the cameras running while the government handlers were giving instructions to the participants. Other reviewers have discussed the ways in which the government handlers coached the participants and created fake backgrounds for the family.

But it is the unstaged scenes that really give an indication of the totalitarian nature of the country. I have ridden subways in New York, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, London, Stockholm, Tokyo, and Seoul, and I have never seen, nor could I have imagined, a scene like the one after Zin-mi's initiation into the Children's Union. (That's a surreal event in itself, especially the unison applause that all stops at the same time.) That is, literally hundreds of parents and children are at the subway station, returning from what is supposed to be a momentous occasion, and none of the parents or children say a word. They wait silently for the train, and they ride it silently, looking rather depressed.

Or take the arrival at work. Everyone silently stands in line, and they are expected to bow to a billboard of the Kim family before turning at a right angle and entering the building. After dancers in colorful costumes rehearse outside, they silently board buses. Nobody seems to talk in public or show anything but a blank facial expression. Even in more intimate scenes, even among the children, people seem to be looking for cues as to what is permitted or appropriate.

This is not "Communism." I was in China in 1990 and in Cuba in 2011, and in both countries, people talk and show emotions in public.

It is telling that the North Koreans saw all the footage (except what the filmmakers held back) and still approved it. Are they so into their own mindset that they don't know that foreigners would be creeped out by a society in which people act like robots in public?