Lisa Ling Goes Inside North Korea

Cross over the 38th parallel from South Korea into North Korea to a place where television is controlled by the state, no outside information is allowed, cell phones are banned, electricity is unreliable (even in the capital), internet does not exist, basic medical facilities cannot be found, and Americans are looked at with loathing. Welcome to North Korea and the rule of the “Dear Leader,” Kim Jong Il, an absolute dictator at the center of a countrywide personality cult. Plenty of mystery surrounds this East Asian country that the U.S. government refers to as an “intelligence black hole.”

Very few Americans have ventured inside the borders of North Korea. So, of course, leave it to National Geographic correspondent Lisa Ling to accept the challenge. In another installment of National Geographic Explorer, “Inside North Korea,” Lisa Ling goes undercover, posing as part of a medical team coming into the country from Nepal to cure cataracts—their goal: one thousand surgeries in ten days. That is 100 surgeries in a single day. They will document the doctors’ journey while giving a rare look at life on the other side of the 38th parallel. The team will have North Korean “minders” with them 24 hours a day. There will be no privacy, and Ling will be the only American in the country. The camera crew, too, faces some challenges; their permission to shoot is limited from where they can film, what they can film, and how they can film it. The result: the film crew must find creative means to sneak their shots. Tension is somewhat created by these forbidden glimpses as they are stolen while the camera is being transported, captured through windows, or taken from around corners. As the team crosses the 38th parallel into South Korea, it becomes greatly easier for them to shoot, and easy for the viewer to see the difference—the shots have lost their shakiness. Satellite images also provide the only glimpses of Camp 22, a concentration camp for political prisoners and their families, maps demonstrate political boundaries, and computerized 3D graphics explain the doctors’ procedure for cataracts surgery. Interwoven with all of this is archived video and photos, (some from the Dutch documentary A Day in the Life, which presented to outsiders North Korea the way the government wanted to present it—picturesque, a utopia.) interviews with North Korean defectors, and reenactments of their escape.

I hate to admit it, but it was not until I first watched this documentary, that I even knew Korea was actually North and South Korea. Maybe I lived inside a bubble or maybe my high school American history classes are to blame; we never made it to learning about the Korean War, we never made it passed World War II. But, regardless, Inside North Korea opened up that curious side of me and sucked me in. Since it first aired in 2006 I have seen this documentary at least 5 times and now own the DVD. I was shocked by the number of people struck blind by poor nutrition and appalled by Kim Jong Il’s rule. Inside North Korea left me with this sense of uneasiness, especially after Lisa Ling’s final words as she wonders who of the North Koreans’ truly believed in the “Great Leader” and who acted out of fear—after generations of absolute rule “there may not be a difference between true belief and true fear.”

My rating:




Watch the first few minutes of Inside North Korea:

Read More:
Inside North Korea NG Digital Motion
Inside North Korea; An Amazing Television Documentary

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Inside the Vietnam War goes Inside Soldiers Memories

“This is the inside story of the Vietnam War—told by those who lived through it and will always live with it:” So opens Inside the Vietnam War. Americans still remember this terrible tale of our history. For all its horrors and all its brutality, the Vietnam War has become a taboo subject, especially among family and friends of its veterans. It is understood that one does not casually approach the Vietnam vet with questions of discovering what happened to them so many miles away on another continent. The brave and curious person who dares to ask the forbidden is usually met with a negative reply—too many memories. For the veterans the war is a living thing, seeping into dreams with vivid and frightening clarity. But, there are those few, perhaps incredibly brave, men and women who look back on their time spent in the jungles of Vietnam and share with others their story, looking back to a place and time they would rather forget.

Inside the Vietnam War consists of a series of three episodes—“Endgame,” “Search and Destroy,” and “Turning Point”—each fifty minutes in length, which together share the firsthand accounts of those American veterans who served their country. National Geographic keeps viewers enthralled with fast action sequences so that one almost has to keep in mind this is not a war movie nor are these reenactments. The images are all real. And, so is the sound of gunfire—blasts of AK47’s rocket launchers, bombs, machine guns, and the shrills of fighter jets accompany a constant narration, our history lesson. When the gunfire dies down a deep musical score keeps emotions up. Additionally, the use of slow motion video prolongs the moment and the tension.

Produced almost entirely using archived and stock footage, recorded audio of wartime communications, and photographs taken by army photographers “crouching between blasts to snap their pictures,” Inside the Vietnam War succeeds in keeping viewers interested where other history shows sometime struggle. National Geographic helps viewers understand the geography of the war through means of simple maps, using familiar landmarks such as Saigon, to illustrate military tactics and formations. Interwoven with all of this are interviews with the veterans like Commander Paul Galanti of the U.S. Navy who remembers being a POW and tortured by the Vietcong, and Astrid Ortega, a former nurse in the U.S. Army recalls spending “hours removing shrapnel with tweezers.” Inside the Vietnam War is an emotional ride, taking its viewers through moments of fear and sorrow, worry, panic, suspicion and hatred, and bizarrely, sometimes joy.

While I may be only 21 years old and not even born until the late 80s, Inside the Vietnam War was incredibly emotional and unnerving for me. My “step” grandfather had served in the war when he was very young. He says he is very proud of serving and displays the Vietnam Veterans emblem tattooed on his arm. Pictures of his time in Vietnam scatter the walls of the game room and the medals my Nana tracked down last Christmas (because he had never been awarded them) hang proudly alongside the images. Having not covered the war in high school history classes, and being far too curious, I wanted to understand why Vietnam was such a taboo subject, but more importantly, I wanted to know the story of someone I love. I would never get his story, though—at least not now, there are too many memories.

My rating:

Watch a clip from Inside the Vietnam War:


Purchase the DVD here: http://shop.nationalgeographic.com/product/919/4298/128.html

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