Kim Jong Il looking a things is first and foremost the title of a blog founded by Joao Rocha, a Portuguese art director, which became a book published by Editions Jean Boite in 2012 thanks to its immense viral success on the Internet. The book, which has become a veritable publishing phenomenon, features a collection of propaganda photographs depicting the late North Korean leader, whose son is currently the talk of the town.
Kim Jong Il is always shown at the center of the photo, accompanied by his loyal subjects with tight smiles, servile gestures and attentive gazes. The beloved leader is looking at radishes, crackers, eggs, dried fish, cows, candy, a wall, potatoes or microscopes… in short, at anything that a leader close to his people might look at.
We watch Kim Jung Il looking, and as we turn the pages, we enter into an initiation into the cult of the person, Korean-style, in an example of propaganda that is almost unprecedented in the world since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
It’s amusing, disturbing and even nerve-wracking. In any case, we don’t come away unscathed, suddenly blessing a France where freedom of the press and advertising still seem important compared to good old Korea.
