The movie follows the line of 'Liberation day' (2016) and stars a controversial Norwegian artist and director Morten Traavik trying to establish dialogue and show North Korea to the world. Now instead of the Slobenian art-band Laibach, it's a group of diverse contemporary artists who visit the closed country. The movie is beautifully filmed and portrays the clash of cultures: while the Western culture is keen on originality, North Korean seems more concerned about the quality of performance. Both groups of Western and Korea artists talk about spiritual values conveyed through art, but the values themselves seem to be radically different. The movie has funny dialogues between the artists and the local curators and translators about the meaning of art, different lifestyles and the influence of ideology. It also reflects the different personalities of artists (eg the French provocative artists using human bones and his own blood in his works, or a German musician experimenting with infra- and ultra- sounds). A special thanks goes to the film's director Tommy Gulliksen for the Q&A session after premiere at the Copenhagen Documentary Film Festival in March 2019.
Review of War of Art
