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Event
CENTRE FORWARD
Dir. Pak Chong Song, 1978
North Korea, 77 min.
In Korean with English subtitles
Oh, we are sportspersons of the Leader! In CENTRE FORWARD, the DPRKs first soccer movie, overzealous benchwarmer In Son botches his first match for the previously-undefeated Taesongan team. Their shameful loss is followed by a harrowing post-game self-recrimination session in which various team members take turns chastising themselves for In Sons incompetence. Ultimately, the coach blames his teams complacency and, remembering that the Father Leader taught us to make this country a great Kingdom of Sports, decides to break from the old training program in favor of a more merciless regimen. The players become resentful and lazy, drinking beer instead of training, while the party functionary Vice-Chairman implores the coach to go easier on them. Only In Son, inspired by his sisters relentless dedication to the practice of dancing for the collective spirit, pushes himself to master the new program and his own self-doubt, recognizing that when we beat the foreign teams, the entire Nation will share the joy. But as the final game winds down with the unpromising score of 0-2, will this humble underdog get the chance to redeem himself and the entire nation?
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As a gesture of goodwill towards our new Axis of Evil partners, Spectacle will be screening a handful of works from North Koreas towering cinema canon.
North Koreas late Kim Jong-Il was, by all accounts, a legendary cinephile who aimed to surpass the technical and artistic standards of Moscow. The films produced under his leadership engage directly with the concept of juche, a particularly North Korean form of Marxism-Leninism generally revolving around the idea of total, homegrown self-reliance; in the senior Kim Il Sungs words: having the attitude of master toward revolution and construction in ones own countryusing your own brains, believing your own strength and displaying the revolutionary spirit of self-reliance, and thus solving your own problems for yourself on your own responsibility under all circumstances.
Initially working as department director of propaganda and agitation, the young Kim Jong Il instituted wide-sweeping reforms in the North Korean film industry, mandating that artists avoid both art-for-arts sake on one extreme and stiff, dogmatic films that neglect form and artistry on the other. He then actively encouraged people to emulate the heroes from films: Day after day, leading characters in the works of art become real in each factory and each workshop, he wrote.
Being at once proudly insular and aspiring to the artistic achievements of great Russian filmmakers and the magic of Hollywood, North Korean film is singularly baffling, enrapturing, inspiring and unsettling.
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LocationSPECTACLE THEATER (View)
124 South 3rd Street
Brooklyn, NY 11249
United States
Categories
| Kid Friendly: No |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
| Wheelchair Accessible: No |
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