It’s hard to sum up the Australian political comedy documentary Aim High In Creation!, which is surprisingly a much more fascinating story than the trailer makes it out to be.
Aim High in Creation was fascinating for two reasons. Firstly, and the obvious, was filmmaker Anna Broinowski‘s microscopic look into the propaganda filmmaking in North Korea and how she could best ultilize it to tell her own story. The second was the reasoning for making this film in the first place, her attempts to raise more awareness of her governments plans to create new gas mines in Australia. Anna hopes that by making the film she could rally the nation and push away the corporate companies responsible for gas mining. The process of gas mining is very dangerous and commonly known as fracking and I was particularly captivated by this part of the documentary for the very fact that my own government plans to do this in the UK, and specifically only a few miles away from where I live.
If you’re unclear on what fracking actually is then it’s not for me to tell you, but rather point you in the direction of this entertaining documentary with a very clear message to the companies which are involved; frack off. As well as being entertaining it’s touching and enlightening in its approach, but sadly tends to feel slightly arrogant and smarmy during their education towards North Korean filmmaking.
Anna decides that the best way to make her video is to follow the guidelines from the father of North Korea, King Jung-il, using his 1987 manifesto The Cinema and Directing. This is where the film has its low points. While it’s quite insightful and fascinating to see this unique culture and how they work, it was a world first that Anna got such unprecedented access to their film industry, you can’t help but feel while she’s promoting their way of life, she’s also quietly mocking them during her time there, and that’s a shame, because while it’s easy to judge another culture and how they conduct themselves, it’s just that, their culture. Generally, the North Korean filmmakers are very sweet and helpful towards Anna’s cause, especially North Korea’s leading filmmaker in propaganda filmmaking and Anna’s mentor who comes across as a warm and sweet man. The Korean filmmakers are asked what they know about Western filmmaking and its apparent of their censorship because it’s very little and they seem to find our way of life just as alien as theirs seem to us. There’s one thing you cannot overlook as we jump between Australia and North Korea and that’s they’re just as inherently human as we are and it lifts that cloudy image that many people seem to have when we hear the words North Korea and instead you feel quite a warmth towards this culture that we only see through newspaper clippings.
That’s the only real down for this wonderful documentary that attempts to raise awareness and rally a nation against the corporate greed that captures the same message Anna’s new allies (who I do think she genuinely appreciates while she finds them entertaining) in North Korea capture in their films, that the people can rise up together to overcome adversity. While the North Korean message in their films has much more intent with its vision, it’s no different than the passions of Anna and her team. It’s a brilliantly delivered education on the criminality of gas mining and how dangerous it can really be and the horrible effect it can have on a family and community. While there are positives to it, they may not necessarily out weight the negatives, especially with alternatives being available.
Was Anna’s quest in making a traditional North Korean propaganda film successful? Yes and no. We see her final product at the end of the documentary and it’s fair to say the dated style doesn’t translate well into modern cinema, but for her documentary as a whole she highlights the evil imperialists swine’s that are corporate companies and their drive by greed without ever showing a humane side to them and barely giving them a chance to defend themselves, so in itself is that not a propaganda film?
Rating: Aim High In Creation! is as compelling and touching as it is entertaining and will raise awareness for a cause that simply isn’t getting enough exposure at the moment (8/10).
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