Songgook escaped from North Korea as a teenager. His eventual wife Sueryun and her mother also escaped across the Tumen River into China, although his mother-in-law was eventually captured and sold off to a Chinese rural farmer. Having married the former, he seeks to liberate the latter... and then shortly thereafter, with the help of his church, seeks to free additional members of her family including her brother, her aunt, and a couple of cousins. If that doesn't constitute a very good husband, I don't know what does. Come to think of it Across Land, Across Sea, the short documentary that chronicles his rescue efforts feels a bit like a home movie. It has its slow stretches and its gripping moments, its repetitive chunks and its touching scenes — and all of it is connected by the spirit of devotion.
Directed in part by journalist Lee Hark-joon, this short documentary is like one of those long personal biographical features in the Sunday paper in which you learn lots of details about a kind of Everyman doing remarkable things in a fairly humble manner. You also hear strange bits that aren't delved into too deeply — like how North Korean defectors are sequestered for six months to make sure they aren't spies and, probably, undergo deprogramming. You also wonder where the church is getting the funds to rent out multiple boats capable of sailing into international waters far from the coast. Are Songgook's escapades an isolated case? It hardly seems likely.
Yet he's a pretty remarkable man, working long hours doing construction and other odd jobs. And speaking of devotion, respect should be paid to filmmaker Lee as well who spent five years covering North Korean defectors by living among them in China. Because it's focused on one simple working-class family, Across Land, Across Sea doesn't have the scope of The Defector: Escape From North Korea or the art world glamor of I Am Sun Mu, but the perils are real; the struggle, laudable; and the tale, no less worthy of telling.
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