Hermit Kingdom, Silver Screen

Vulture's complaining that, apparently, the first contemporary Western movie to make it into North Korea is Bend It Like Beckham. I actually quite like the flick, and particularly, Keira Knightley before she was British Beauty Personified. And I'd be fascinated to know what North Koreans made of it.

I imagine given the impact of famine on North Korea's food supply, the main character's attitude towards food might seem utterly perplexing. You've got to be pretty secure in your food supply if you can see the requirement that you be a good cook as oppressive. The book I linked to is the source of an incredible New Yorker article on famine in North Korea that makes clear the extent to which keeping starvation at bay has been a full-time job for many North Koreans, so I have no idea how North Korean viewers would react to the idea of cooking as a leisure-time activity. I imagine the Indian parents might seem more sympathetic to North Korean viewers, who might see them as setting up their daughters to be good providers, than Western audiences do.

I also have no idea what the average North Korean's exposure to Indian cultural norms, or to the issues of immigrant assimilation in the UK might be, and whether some of the central conflicts of the movie even resonate. Bend It Like Beckham is, at its core, a love story, of course. But it's a love story surrounded by a lot of class, race, and national politics. And I have absolutely no idea what makes it through in the translation of the script. I can imagine a lot of the movie's events and jokes would be inexplicable without context. I know it's decidedly minor, but if anyone makes it out of North Korea soon who saw the broadcast, I'd be curious to know what they thought.