other cinema: 'JUCHE IDEA' + r. vienet + more

The SF premiere of the last part of Finn's macro-political trilogy is an hr.-long faux doc about a South Korean videographer undertaking a North Korean art residency to help bring Kim Jong-Il's cinema into the 21st Century. Inspired by the real-life story of the So. Korean director kidnapped to invigorate the No. Korean film industry, the satire moves through the Party-worshipping paeans (including musicals) of our new official People's Artist. Following Finn's brilliant burlesque of the ideologically over-determined is a half-hr. paragon of Chinese propaganda, produced in lurid-red color in 1964 by their State Documentary Studio, gloriously reporting on their first successful H-bomb test. Come early for the last reel of Peking Duck Soup, a sarcastic Situationist send-up of Stalinist power-plays in the Chinese leadership during the last decade of Mao's rule. This montage anomaly, made by Rene Vienet and the recently deceased Francis Deron, was a wild provocation at the '77 Cannes Festival, and is a fearless example of how a collage of newsreels, kung-fu films, regional pop-music, and sardonic voice-over can so smartly serve our anti-authoritarian historical memory. Free plum wine with DJ Onanist!