North South Man Woman is a documentary focused on a North Korean woman, Yujin, who has made her way to safety in South Korea and who now runs a matchmaking bureau for South Korean men who wish to marry North Korean women. The cameras follow Yujin’s personal life and that of her friends, a group of about ten people who take trips to the seaside together, bring their kids to karate lessons, go on date nights with their spouses and reminisce about the types of torture they endured after another failed escape attempt. But despite the personal stories being some of the very worst anyone could ever survive – and usually told in such a matter-of-fact way that it takes a while for the full ramifications to sink in – this is a positive and cheerful movie. This documentary is about how some people put their pasts behind them by focusing on creating a happy and cheerful future by any means necessary. Sure there’s rampant societal sexism and discrimination, there’s culture shock and survivor’s guilt. But there is also a chance to build your own life for yourself and define how the world sees you. It’s an astonishing document of the resilience of the human heart.
The movie begins with Yujin attending the public memorial for a North Korean woman she knew, who could not adapt to life in the south and starved to death at home with her son. But Yujin herself has a very strong will to survive and a disinterest in dwelling on the past, and therefore has adapted quite well to capitalism. In addition to running her matchmaking service, she is building a small farm/bed-and-breakfast outside of the city, and taking care of her family, which includes two children. But when she and the other women talk of their husbands and their romantic choices, it becomes apparent that what they want from their marriages and families is very different from what their husbands dream of. Broadly speaking, it’s a combination of some of the world’s most hardened survivors paired up with some of the world’s most awkward nerds, with the survivors often having to take on their in-laws in the bargain. And yet the interpersonal dynamics here are merely an extreme version of a lot of marriages, especially when the power differential between the spouses is much more complex than first seen. This would be relentlessly fascinating even if the North Korean’s backstories weren’t so sad. Co-directors Sun Kim and Morten Traavik (a Norwegian who has worked extensively inside North Korea) also made the clever decision to include footage from a few famous North Korean romcoms, to provide a cultural context those of us in the west are unlikely to get any other way.
Before each Sheffield DocFest screening there was a trailer for the festival, which included four brief clips from North South Man Woman. The movie is so emotionally resonant that it’s no wonder its images – which in the festival trailer included a someone wearing a cat’s-head costume under an umbrella, a small child bopping another on the head with a balloon, a woman unfolding a bridal veil, and a groom giving a corny thumbs-up – connected so strongly with the festival team. Because it really is the story of how love can turn even the saddest story into a happy one. The importance of a stable and supportive relationship to recover from trauma is almost secondary, except in how marriages change over the years and the spouses continue to adapt, or not, to each other. Life never stands still and it keeps a matchmaker busy, among other things. North South Man Woman is a documentary worthy of the lives it depicts.
North South Man Woman recently played at Sheffield DocFest.
Learn more about the film at the official Sheffield site for the title.
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