Liberation Day

North Korea may be the most talked and the lesser known country of the planet. It's a closed and supervised nation which is practically disconnected from the rest of the world, and who let itself be filmed very seldom, by few people and in a well filtered manner. 'Laibach' is an anarchist band of metal rock from Slovenia, which had its peak moment of glory more than three decades ago when it brought its contribution to the fall of the Iron Curtain and of the Communism system and dismantling of the country that was known for much of the 20th century as Yugoslavia. The two came together in the summer of 2015 in an incredible event which can be of huge importance or can be just a footnote in history. The first concert of a Western (or at least European) rock band in North Korea. Until history decides about the importance of the event, we have this documentary film named Liberation Day which I have seen in the last screening of the DocAviv International Documentary Film Festival in Tel Aviv.

Watching this film is a multi-layered experience. We see a door semi-open, or a crack in a wall of mis-communication or lack of communication – I think these words or some similar are being used in the film – to a closed world. But we also know that not all could be filmed, and not everything was shown to the guests. While the members of the band and the team that came with them seem to buy into much of what is being served to them, there is a lot that is not being said that needs to be taken into consideration. After all, the members of the Laibach band not only came originally from a similar political system, maybe not that extreme, but based on the same principles, but also fought against it, and contributed – with their music and public attitude – to their fall. So the question can be asked – why did they accept the censorship and the rules of engagement defined by their hosts? Were they manipulated? The answer is not simple and the ambiguous quote that opens the film describes their approach – any form of art (in their opinion) has its component of propaganda and manipulation.

(Yes, indeed, but dosing differs.)

Some of the images in the film are memorable. The beginning brings together crowds on stadiums gathered for rock concerts (in the West) or for big propaganda shows (in North Korea) and suggests a parallel. The huge statues of the Korean rulers and the ceremonies of bringing flowers and bowing to the monuments are impressive, even if one may disagree with the message that is being conveyed. Some of the situations shown on screen – censorship, controlled performances with selected audiences – are familiar for somebody who lived under the Communist system. Other look simply surrealistic. The music of Laibach and the deep voice of the soloist remember us again on the background that what is important is the art and that its message needs not be explicit. A rock band concert in North Korea is an event. This film is an event. Viewers need to take this film as an open exercise and do their own reading.

The Slovenian cult band Laibach becomes the first foreign rock group ever to perform in the fortress state of North Korea. Confronting strict ideology and cultural differences, the band struggles to get their songs through the needle's eye of censorship before they can be unleashed on an audience never before exposed to rock music.

For those not familiar with Laibach, the band is something of a mix between Devo and Rammstein. In fact, Rammstein freely admits that is influenced by Laibach. Their performance art is steeped in fascist and nationalist imagery; apparently, the North Korean government does not understand the meaning of "satire" and this is one reason the band managed to get the dubious honor of playing rather than, say, Aerosmith or the Rolling Stones. In their own words, "We are fascists as much as Hitler was a painter". Take that however you like.

The biggest question viewers might have is how filmmakers even had access to film inside North Korea. That answer is director Morten Traavik, a Norwegian director and artist who is something of a cultural ambassador to the country. Although this documentary is about Laibach and the censorship of North Korea, the figure of Traavik looms large. This is a man who held multiple beauty pageants for landmine survivors. And, when asked about political oppression, he says (not entirely jokingly), "I live in Sweden now, it's pretty oppressive. It's like a Soviet Union made by gay people." Once inside North Korea, danger seems to lurk around every corner. The band and their crew are warned not to wander off alone; without Traavik, they have no mediator. The people there are openly referred to as "brainwashed" and this is evident from the few people who are interviewed on camera. The Kafa-esque levels of bureaucracy are absurd, with the band not even being made aware of who is handing out censorship decisions or why.

Some of the censorship issues actually raise interesting cultural points. The band considered adding some lyrics in Korean to appeal to their audience, but were then told it was risky because it might sound "South" Korean. The countries have been divided for so long that the languages have almost become distinct due to the tight borders. North Korea speaks the same language it spoke 75 years ago, whereas South Korea has been more open to modifications from outside languages. In such an inter-connected world, any language will naturally adapt words from other cultures. But not North Korea.

The concert included re-interpretations of songs from "The Sound of Music", which seems subtly subversive considering the film was, of course, about a family fleeing totalitarianism. With all the lyric notes, video edits and other changes the North Korean censors required, it is rather surprising they allowed this to go through. Then again, did the audience fully grasp the symbolism anyway? Any documentary inside North Korea would be fascinating, but it's the merger of North Korea and a group of individuals like Laibach that raises the film to the level of the absurd. Without a doubt, this is one of the year's best documentaries and a rare treat where truth is stranger than fiction. "Liberation Day" screens at the Fantasia International Film Festival on July 16, 2017.

My first introduction to Laibach was through my older brother, it was in the year 2004. We came together to their concert and i was totally blown away, i was at the same time very scared and amazed. After that time i watched them 4 more times, and they were always different and unique, you really don't know what to expect from them, so they shocked the whole western "democratic" world when they played live in North Korea in 2015. I really somehow expected them to play one day in the most closed country in the world. And after 2 years we now have the documentary about that amazing achievement. These documentary is fantastically directed by Norwegian Morten Traavik, the man who organized Laibach's performance in Pyongyang. These documentary is not just about the Laibach concert and things happening behind the curtain. It is about people, about country we don't know so much. We can also see that people there are living in real communist utopia, hate it or not, but they are looking happy, maybe they are brainwashed but you cannot denied that they somehow reached the goals of communist utopia, but the most amazing thing of documentary is that you see that all people are somehow similar, when time passed people from band and local people get more connected and open to each other. You can see at the end of documentary, the audience was cold and scared at the beginning but at the end Laibach gets big applause and people smiled, Laibach succeeded and liberated local people from their prejudices and fears. This is the must watch not only for the fans of Laibach but for all open minded people. My grade 9/10.

I saw it now... As I wrote in this headline, it isn't bad, but there is something confusing in it. Is that the movie about one unusual trip and performance of the Slovenian band or is it about the life in North Korea? However, it is interesting and surprising to see that they were invited to come as a guests and also that Boris(think Boris said that) says "we are the children of Tito's Yugoslavia and now we are orphans". From North Korea's side looking, there is just what is allowed to be known and how their leader shows to foreigners only what he wants to be seen. I guess the true message is "All art is subject to political manipulation", what is the opening quote of the film.

Laibach are a Slovenian art-rock group, who in 2015 went to play a gig in North Korea whose setlist comprised songs from 'The Sound of Music'; this film documents the story. Unsurprisingly, it's a strange tale, but it's also a very hard one to take seriously. Partly, it's because the band themselves deadpan every comment: in Europe, they perform dressed as Nazis, in North Korea they talk of "the most perfect communism". And we (and it seems, also they) actually see very little of North Korean society: film of their strangely mannered discussions with the staff at their concert venue is hard to interpret in the absence of a broader picture. If you told me the entire film was a fake I would believe it, although according to the best information I can find on the internet, the trip actually happened. But don't expect any real insight into life behind the world's thickest iron curtain.