Kimjongilia

Lately outsiders are more likely to laugh at North Korea's despotic head than to think about those who suffer under him, and Kimjongilia is a welcome and necessary antidote to that impulse.

Built around interviews with more than a half-dozen North Koreans who fled their country but can't shake its hold on their imaginations.

Arguably the most dysfunctional culture of the past few centuries, North Korea is a cosmically mad movie waiting to happen. But for now, Heikin's is merely insubstantial.

Watching these painful reports by escapees of starvation, concentration camps, torture, and killings is more frustrating than enlightening.