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Czech Republic, Russia, Germany · 2016
1h 46m
Director Vitaly Mansky
Starring Lee Zin-Mi, Yu-Yong, Hye-Yong, Oh-Gyong
Genre Documentary
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A documentary about a year in the life of a family in Pyongyang, North Korea as the daughter prepares to join the Korean Children’s Union on The Day of the Shining Star. Commissioned by the government of North Korea, the ornate cultural rituals clash with the mundanity of everyday life.
There’s a terrible wonder in this rare glimpse inside a country that has tried to empty itself of all thought, all commerce and all civil society — of pretty much everything except an especially lame version of hero worship and despotism.
While at about the two-thirds mark, Under the Sun begins to seem a bit attenuated, its obvious (if only implied) points already made, the ending is a stunner.
Commissioned as propaganda, Under the Sun instead documents life inside its grip.
The New York Times by Glenn Kenny
The movie raises disquieting questions, including a few that Mr. Mansky might not have meant to.
RogerEbert.com by Godfrey Cheshire
Although unintentionally funny throughout, its evocation of life in a totalitarian society is ultimately chilling. The happy picture the North Koreans struggle to present implies unfathomable depths of violence to the human spirit beneath its glossy surface.
Slant Magazine by Jesse Cataldo
Under the Sun's overall aesthetic identifies a willingness to settle for an easy condemnation of an obviously abysmal regime, while not doing anything challenging or enlightening with all the outstanding footage collected.
The truths revealed in this film have more to do with the North Korean government’s self-consciousness about how they’re perceived by foreigners. Here, they seem desperate to appear productive, congenial, devoted, and above all, happy.
The New Yorker by Richard Brody
The vision of such severe regimentation is shocking; Zin-mi’s tears of shame and her sharply limited range of knowledge and inhibited behavior embody an outrage.
The Hollywood Reporter by Stephen Dalton
Both surreal and sinister, it feels like we are watching a real-life version of The Truman Show.
Screen International by Wendy Ide
What’s more unexpected is just how much Russian documentary filmmaker Vitaly Mansky is able to reveal despite, and often because of, the stringent restrictions imposed upon him.
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