What do you think?
Rate this book
The Ministry of Truth: Kim Jong-Il's North Korea
The few dozen tourists—and a few journalists—who come annually to the North Korean capital of Pyongyang are accompanied by guides and are only allowed to see what the regime blinders for their viewing. For the visitors, actors often represent pedestrians, and the consumer goods seen in stores are unavailable to the public at large. The statistics heaped upon the visitors are dubious at best.
Kim Jong Il's People's Republic of North Korea is a gigantic installation, a simulation, a play. Eva Munz, Christian Kracht, and Lukas Nikol traveled to this land to take pictures of a country from which there are no pictures. What they show in The Ministry of Truth is a window view of the gigantic 3-D production of Kim Jong Il, who writes the nation's statistics and authors its film script. Because no accurate view is available of this total installation, the authors make the only one possible: They comment on their photos with quotations from a didactic book on the art of film written by the dictator—who not only collects wine and Mazda RX-7 sports cars, but also has an enormous film library.
Christian Kracht is a celebrated journalist and author and the editor of the German cultural magazine Der Freund. The photographs of Eva Munz and Lukas Nikol have had numerous international exhibitions.
Kim Jong Il's People's Republic of North Korea is a gigantic installation, a simulation, a play. Eva Munz, Christian Kracht, and Lukas Nikol traveled to this land to take pictures of a country from which there are no pictures. What they show in The Ministry of Truth is a window view of the gigantic 3-D production of Kim Jong Il, who writes the nation's statistics and authors its film script. Because no accurate view is available of this total installation, the authors make the only one possible: They comment on their photos with quotations from a didactic book on the art of film written by the dictator—who not only collects wine and Mazda RX-7 sports cars, but also has an enormous film library.
Christian Kracht is a celebrated journalist and author and the editor of the German cultural magazine Der Freund. The photographs of Eva Munz and Lukas Nikol have had numerous international exhibitions.
- GenresNonfictionArt
132 pages, Paperback
First published August 27, 2006
108 people want to read
About the author
Christian Kracht
27 books605 followersChristian Kracht is a Swiss writer and journalist.
Kracht was born in Saanen. His father, Christian Kracht Sr., was chief representative for the Axel Springer publishing company in the 1960s. Kracht attended Schule Schloss Salem in Baden and Lakefield College School in Ontario, Canada. He graduated from Sarah Lawrence College, New York, in 1989.
Kracht was born in Saanen. His father, Christian Kracht Sr., was chief representative for the Axel Springer publishing company in the 1960s. Kracht attended Schule Schloss Salem in Baden and Lakefield College School in Ontario, Canada. He graduated from Sarah Lawrence College, New York, in 1989.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 9, 2021
"Kim Jong-Il's People's Republic is a gigantic installation, a maniacal theatrical play that - with all its hermetic meticulousness and its perfect Potemkinization - simulates an entire country. But the question is, for whom?"
Excellent text by Kracht, interesting images by Munz and Nikol, but the montage principle of showing photographs and mock contextualising them with quotes from the dictator's On the Art of the Cinema becomes a little stale all too quickly.
Excellent text by Kracht, interesting images by Munz and Nikol, but the montage principle of showing photographs and mock contextualising them with quotes from the dictator's On the Art of the Cinema becomes a little stale all too quickly.
January 25, 2010
a postmodern coffee table book in miniature. the authors' premise is that kim jong il is a frustrated film maker using his position of absolute power to run the country of north korea as a 'map is the territory' film set for his own amusement. it may sound farfetched but the introduction by christian kracht actually has me mostly convinced.
i think the assertions that carried the most weight are the alleged facts that pink floyd is kim jong il's favorite band and that north korea is deep into methamphetamine production. growing up in southern california, i knew plenty of acid-marinated speed fiends with delusions of grandeur that would of easily created the sort of paranoid jacked up simulacra that north korea appears to be. it is no stretch at all to imagine kim's pinpoint pupils behind those kanye west glasses grooving on the fact that he can make his wildest drug fantasies happen with a snap of his fingers. that those fantasies would look exactly like north korea fits perfectly with the frantic megalomaniacal freestylings of my former nocturnal associates.
the pictures have a flattened out wide screen looking glass feel familiar from watching east berlin cinema and antonioni's 'chung kuo - cina' and the quotes from kim's cinematic meditations are deliciously resonant.
all and all this is a much more satisfying experience than most coffee table picture books and stands up to repeated musing. recommended.
i think the assertions that carried the most weight are the alleged facts that pink floyd is kim jong il's favorite band and that north korea is deep into methamphetamine production. growing up in southern california, i knew plenty of acid-marinated speed fiends with delusions of grandeur that would of easily created the sort of paranoid jacked up simulacra that north korea appears to be. it is no stretch at all to imagine kim's pinpoint pupils behind those kanye west glasses grooving on the fact that he can make his wildest drug fantasies happen with a snap of his fingers. that those fantasies would look exactly like north korea fits perfectly with the frantic megalomaniacal freestylings of my former nocturnal associates.
the pictures have a flattened out wide screen looking glass feel familiar from watching east berlin cinema and antonioni's 'chung kuo - cina' and the quotes from kim's cinematic meditations are deliciously resonant.
all and all this is a much more satisfying experience than most coffee table picture books and stands up to repeated musing. recommended.
March 15, 2012
A little too clever with juxtaposing the images with text from Kim Jong Il, but the images are compelling and definitely worth checking out.
June 26, 2011
Eva Munz, Christian Kracht, and Lukas Nikol traveled to this land to take pictures of a country from which there are no pictures.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews