Hidden camera footage augments this perilous high-stakes journey as we embed with families attempting to escape oppression, ultimately revealing a world most of us have never seen.
The white knuckle documentary “Beyond Utopia” captures a family’s traumatic escape from their home country of North Korea as they seek a better future for themselves and their children after living under a lifetime of oppression, suffering, and brutality. Director Madeleine Gavin uses no dramatic re-creations and instead utilizes video footage filmed by her subjects in her extraordinarily gripping film that can and should be viewed as a work of human rights advocacy.
The documentary follows two families who are attempting to defect from the totalitarian dictatorship of their homeland. One, a clan of five including two small girls and their elderly grandmother and the other, a mother desperate to reunite with her son (now a teenager) that she was forced to leave behind when he was a toddler. Led by Pastor Kim and an intricate underground network of altruistic volunteers and sketchy brokers (who see their charges as dollar signs more so than people), the film takes a suspenseful look at their perilous and exhausting 3,000 mile journey through four countries in search of freedom.
Retribution for defecting is harsh, so the documentary plays like a thriller with its literal life or death situation. The movie is filled with secretly-filmed footage of the journey that is jaw-dropping. Filmed in the moment in vérité, some of the clips are so fuzzy and dark that you cannot make out the outlines of the people in the frame. It’s unclear what we are seeing unfold, but it’s compelling and gut wrenching in a way that provides an urgent and visceral experience.
Gavin includes a brief history lesson and background of the country as well as interviews with others who have defected. This gives a necessary chronicle not only of the country, but gives a voice to the North Korean people who have lived it. As you hear these people express the horrors they’ve seen in their own words, it is impossible not to feel an overwhelming sense of empathy, compassion, and sorrow. Their stories are distressing, and they will rip your heart out before inspiring you to take action to help. It’s heartbreaking to think that these are just two families who are able to tell their story, and it’s physically and emotionally painful when you stop and realize how many more less fortunate North Koreans are out there, suffering.
The firsthand stories of horrific human rights abuses are downright deplorable, and the film expresses what life is really like inside a country ruled by supreme leader Kim Jong Un. Some of the film’s network of subjects even provide astounding footage shot inside the country, exposing the unimaginable living conditions over the years.
I was emotionally invested in this sobering film in a way that hit me like no other. I was literally on the edge of my seat, holding my breath and choking back tears while watching the outcome unfold with a grave urgency. This is a stressful, eye-opening documentary that showcases the unwavering will, fierce determination, and the unbreakable heart of the human spirit.
I feel like “Beyond Utopia” is a documentary that should be required viewing, especially with the world in the state that it’s in today.
