The Red Chapel Review

Produced by Lars Von Trier's Zentropa and partially shot through a fish-eye lens for maximum surreality, The Red Chapel documents director Mads Brügger's trip to Pyongyang with Jacob and Simon, Korean-born comedians raised in Denmark (the former is a developmentally disabled teenager who describes himself as "spastic"). To the North Koreans, the trio billed itself as the Red Chapel, a Kim Jong-il–friendly theatrical troupe on a cultural exchange. Only the audience knows that the Red Chapel is a reference to Rote Kapelle, a Soviet spy cell that infiltrated Nazi-occupied Europe, and the "cultural exchange" is just a ruse to sneak a camera into this closed state. A Borat-like performance experiment with considerably higher stakes than anything Sacha Baron Cohen has yet attempted, The Red Chapel is primarily a document of the Danes' struggle to stay undercover once inside, a mission branded by a fellow Danish comedian as "pure suicide jazz." You get the sense even Brügger isn't sure how far this could go, until the first rehearsal of the group's "show" (a nonsensical pastiche of amateur tap dancing, fart noises, selected scenes from The Princess and the Pea starring Jacob as the Princess and a suspiciously sincere cover of "Wonderwall"), when the North Koreans peg them not as spies but bad performers. The double act increasingly wears on Simon and Jacob, and as Brügger insists that they barrel full steam ahead, "moral scruples" be damned, The Red Chapel becomes an infectiously funny, gonzo glimpse into the sausage-making process of propaganda.

The Red Chapel

Location Info

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Downtown Independent Theater

251 S. Main St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Category: Movie Theaters

Region: Downtown

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More About

• Mads Brugger
• Kino Lorber
• Pyongyang
• Lars von Trier
• Arts, Entertainment, and Media

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THE RED CHAPEL | Directed by MADS BRÜGGER | Kino Lorber Films | Downtown Independent