During
the early 1980s, the very name of the Slovenian industrial metal-avant-garde
band Laibach was declared illegal by the Communist government. (It happened to
be the German name of Ljubljana, the Slovenian capital.) You would therefore
expect they would be the last rock band that would agree to perform in North
Korea, one of the last remaining Communist regimes. Yet, they signed on for the
unlikely gig, presumably because they appreciated both the irony and the
potential publicity. As if Pyongyang were not surreal enough, the band infamous
for their “satirical” crypto-fascist stylings came to rock the house, but
satisfying the censors would be quite the adventure, duly documented in Ugis
Olte & Morten Traavik’s Liberation
Day (trailer
here), which opens this Wednesday in New York.
Perhaps,
you are thinking: “wait, haven’t I heard this joke before?” Yes, Mads Brügger
and his co-conspirators made the North Korean censors squirm with their proposed
good will variety show,documented in Red Chapel. The difference is Laibach and show producer-co-director
Traavik really wanted to stage a serious concert—so much so, they were willing
to make numerous concessions to the censors and their minders.
Of
course, reality frequently crashes their party, starting from day one, when a
high-ranking apparatchik basically calls them fascist pigs at their welcoming
banquet. They should have said takes one to know one, but instead Traavik
claims the band is constantly misrepresented in the media, just like the
peace-loving state of North Korea, so they therefore share a kinship.
The
extent to which the band is willing to compromise their artistic integrity for
the sake of the concert is frankly disappointing. Seriously, you guys used to
give Tito the finger. Show some nihilistic contempt for authority. Frontline estimates one out of every one hundred North Koreans is a political prisoner and entire families--two generations in each direction--routinely condemned to concentration camps for one member's thought crimes. Yet, Laibach obediently minds their minders ignores this reality. That's not iconoclasm, its servility.
Still, you have to gawk at some of the spectacle, including Laibach performing their satanic-sounding Sound of Music covers, with the full approval of the censorship bureau. Apparently, the Julie Andrews movie is a staple of North Korean television, but good luck collecting those residuals.
Still, you have to gawk at some of the spectacle, including Laibach performing their satanic-sounding Sound of Music covers, with the full approval of the censorship bureau. Apparently, the Julie Andrews movie is a staple of North Korean television, but good luck collecting those residuals.
