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Watch: A “Language Lesson” from Jim Finn’s North Korean Mockumentary The Juche Idea
The FBI can’t prove that North Korea is responsible for hacking into Sony, releasing thousands of documents and confidential company information. So it can’t be said with any certainty that the hack was launched as an official attack on James Franco and Seth Rogen’s forthcoming let’s-assassinate-Kim Jong-un comedy The Interview, although the outraged North Korean government has expressed their approval, stating that “hacking into Sony Pictures might be a righteous deed of the supporters and sympathizers with the DPRK.” Regardless of how it shakes out, what better time to revisit Jim Finn’s peerlessly odd, deadpan take on North Korean propaganda? 2008’s The Juche Idea takes its title from the vague ideology (roughly translatable as “self-reliance”) codified by the DPRK’s founding leader, Kim Il-sung. This clip gives a good idea of what Finn’s droll blend of actual North Korean propaganda and appropriately low-rent video interpolations is like. You can watch the whole thing on Fandor.
