Crossing The Line

In April 2001 I went to North Korea with a group of friends for a one week “vacation”. The trip was organized by Nick Bonner, who was my downstairs neighbor in Beijing at that time, and one of the other participants was Daniel Gordon. Dan always carried a small video camera with him while in the DPRK, and after a few days he told me that he was shooting a documentary (at that time still more or less secretly). That was the first footage for The Game Of Their Lives which came out a year later. It was quite a success and Dan went on to direct several other films related to North Korea.

One of them is Crossing The Line, a documentary about James Dresnok, a US soldier who defected from the South Korean side of the demilitarized zone to North Korea in 1962. It was a sudden decision because he was angry at his superiors, but it was a decision that was irreversible, because he could not leave anymore and has been in North Korea ever since. Dan and Nick went to Pyongyang to meet with him and shot this documentary based on the interviews with him.

I did not know how I could easily watch the documentary in Shanghai (my local DVD store does not carry it), but then I realized there is a copy on YouTube. So last night I sat down with a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and watched the 91 minute documentary. I was blown away by it, not only was it very well made but the story is out-of-this-world. I thought about the documentary for quite some time after watching it and this morning it was still on my mind, so I decided to write a blog post about it.

Mr. Dresnok went to the DPRK without really thinking about the consequences. It may seems like something that nobody can ever understand, but to me the documentary made clear why he did it: he had been abandoned by everybody during his whole life and and just wanted to run away from it all. His parents divorced and then abandoned him, he ran away from foster homes and when he got married his wife had left him for another guy when he came back from a 2-year stay in Germany. Nobody wanted him, and I get the feeling he desperately wanted to have a safe and stable life. And guess what, that’s what he eventually got in North Korea.

He comes across as a well-spoken person, who seems to be happy with his current life. But is he really? That was the question that was on my mind and that I have been trying to answer for myself. Is he a great actor? Or is he completely brainwashed? Or does he truly believe what he says? I think it’s a combination of all three things. Mr. Dresnok never finished high school and was still very young, meaning that it is probably relatively easy to manipulate his thoughts. I think that’s what happened, and after spending twice as long in North Korea as he lived in the US it’s not so strange that he would be brainwashed.

But I also think he is acting. Especially the part where he hears what Mr. Jenkins (a fellow defector who managed to escape North Korea during the time of filming) has to say about North Korea. It felt like he was acting there, I think he realized that he would be in danger because Mr. Jenkins spilled some secrets about their early life in the DPRK. After hearing Mr. Jenkins side of the story I also realized that Mr. Dresnok may seem like a nice person, but that he probably was a very different person in reality. Mr. Jenkins said that Mr. Dresnok beat him up at least 30 times when the Koreans asked him to, which suddenly seems quite likely. Mr. Dresnok is a big guy and could have been a bully to make sure he would get a good life, and he despised Mr. Jenkins who had a higher rank than he had.

At one point during the documentary it becomes clear that Mr. Dresnok had a relationship with Mr. Jenkins wife, but I wonder whether Mr. Jenkins wife (who was a young kidnapped Japanese lady) really wanted this. Mr. Jenkins caught Mr. Dresnok with his hands in Mrs. Jenkins pants at a party… The more I think it the more I feel this may have been part of Mr. Dresnok’s bullying behavior, where he felt he could get away with this. Mr. Dresnok almost seems proud of it when he talks about this.

My conclusion for now is that Mr. Dresnok might be more than just the simple guy that he claims to be. He clearly is someone who did not fit in in society and has trouble with relationships, but also someone who was very good at manipulating others, despite only having a few years of formal education. Is he trying to fool the documentary makers with his story? I think he is partly lying, but I also think that he has been in North Korea so long that he believes his own story. And I think he is able to close his eyes for what really happens in the DPRK. It’s basically a trade he is making with the ruling Party: you give me food and protection, and I will tell a positive story about my life here.

Is he happy? I think he is satisfied with his simple life. Had he stayed in the USA he would have probably had a simple life as well. No hunger, but also no wealth. At least in the DPRK he even managed to become a celebrity (he played in many movies, so everybody knows him), and he was treated well. But he was not truly happy. He tried to escape once at the beginning of his stay (the Russian embassy kicked him out), but also now he pretends to be happy but that’s not the complete truth. This suddenly became clear to me in the last part when he is fishing and his Korean comrade wonders whether Mr. Dresnok really likes fishing. He pretends he loves his life, but I think he does miss his former life, especially after Dan shows him pictures of his hometown. Maybe this also explains why he smokes and drinks a lot.

To me the documentary was intriguing, and it brought back memories from my trip to North Korea. See it for yourself on DVD or on YouTube (part 1/6 is here) if you have any interest in life in the DPRK, I highly recommend it.

The trailer is embedded below and can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kBmAnjlJ3A