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| The duplicity of being a mole is thematized on this poster for Mads Brügger's The Mole: Undercover in North Korea |
An ex-chef contacts Danish documentarian Mads Brügger following his exposé of the crazy North-Korean regime in his The Red Chapel/Det Røde Kapel (2009, documentary miniseries) with a proposal to infiltrate the Danish-North Korean friendship organization. This over the course of several years evolves into a high-risk mole operation.
The Mole: Undercover in North Korea is written and directed by Mads Brügger (Danes for Bush (2004, documentary miniseries)).
It may contain the most sensational reveal of any of Brügger's works to date, as the Danish mole Ulrich Larsen introduces a Danish billionaire, - actually a former foreign legionnaire and cocaine drug dealer, - to the Spanish head of the international Korean Friendship Organization, Alejandro Cao de Benós, who soon facilitates meeting between the three and North-Korean military leaders, offering missiles, weapons and drugs. The sting comes to focus on creating a factory for producing weapons and methamphetamine on an island in Lake Victoria, Uganda, which local officials are willing to strip of its inhabitants to appease the foreign criminals.
What the reveal actually reveals is being debated: It was already known that North Korea sold weapons to other evildoers such as Iran (and the film also mentions Syria as a purchase nation from the Communist autocrasy.) It is shocking that the regime is apparently so open to sell heavy war weaponry and drug factories to anyone who shows up claiming to have deep pockets. - The acting, big-mouthed billionaire is only known as Mr. James and is never forced to prove his wealth to the gullible North-Koreans. Some have ascertained that the film shows that the UN sanctions against North Korea works, as no country would act like this unless they were desperate for foreign finance. Others have interjected that such desperation and willingness to sell dangerous material is troubling and highly dangerous.
The fascinating part of the documentary, which is structured as a 3-part miniseries in Denmark and as a 2-part miniseries in English, is especially the incredible mission that the regular guy Ulrich undertakes, ostensibly out of a disdain for Communist dictatorships and a willingness to take risks and gamble with his own safety. Regrettably we get little insight into Ulrich: Though the film deals in intelligence, we are left in the dark as to what debilitating illness has landed the seemingly healthy man an early retirement, which is a shame. Even less gets revealed about Mr. James' real identity, but of course the two men's faces and actions tell a lot in themselves. Their undercover work is impressive and incredible. One also twists in discomfort and incredulity at the gatherings of Western friends of the North-Korean evil that Ulrich the mole infiltrates.
Unfortunately the film is structured poorly. A former MI5-agent, Annie Machon, is hired to debrief the mole for the camera, but their scenes are extremely staged and unnatural. Machon could have worked as an expert giving testimony to the camera next to the action, whereas a great, big-shot journalist like Lesley Stahl would instead have been ideal to interview Ulrich and Mr. James (and secure publicity for the film in North America). Brügger refuses to back out of the story as the actively storytelling documentarian that he sees himself as, and in The Mole: Undercover in North Korea it hinders the affair as a whole. Apart from Machon (and some female performers during the film's North Korea visit), the only other woman character is Ulrich's wife, who is brought up a few times only so we can be told that she is kept in the dark. In the end she is also brought in for another unnatural 'scene', in which Ulrich informs her of his undercover mission, and she blames him for inattention without in any way recognizing even the existence of North Korea, an ending that it is a mystery why Brügger thinks we need, mostly probably because we don't get closer to Ulrich during the ordeal than we do.
Still The Mole: Undercover in North Korea is an incredible derring-do and another reveal of a bizarre country that obviously needs to be ended sooner rather than later for the good of everyone.
Watch a news segment about the documentary here
Cost: Reported 1.9 mil. €, approximately 2.24 mil. $
Box office: None (TV release)
= Uncertain
[The Mole: Undercover in North Korea was released in on TV and the internet 10 October (Denmark, Sweden, Norway and the UK). Shooting took place in London, UK, Copenhagen, Denmark, Stockholm, Sweden, Brussels, Belgium, Pyongyang, North Korea, Spain, including Madrid and Barcelona, Germany, Oslo, Norway, Dublin, Ireland, Kampala, Uganda, Amman, Jordan, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Beijing, China and Washington DC, lasting upwards of 10 years. Around 500,000 people saw the miniseries initially at its Danish release. The documentary and additional intelligence from its making are being studied at the UN Sanctions Committee. Brügger does not have his next project announced yet. 1,050 IMDb users have given The Mole: Undercover in North Korea a 8.8/10 average rating.]
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