Tall, blonde and blue-eyed, it is impossible not to notice Isak Borg, First Secretary to the Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang. As a diplomat, he is under constant surveillance and strongly discouraged from interacting with the locals. Despite this, he secretly dates Bok-joo, a local traffic officer, but when one last effort to extend his stay is rejected, Isak begs her to come back to Stockholm with him. Bok-joo turns this idea down and abruptly disappears. Oblivious to the danger he is putting the woman he loves in, Isak asks Myeong-jun, his assigned interpreter, for help. When Myeong-jun refuses, a desperate Isak becomes increasingly suspicious of everyone.

Loneliness and longing suffuse each gorgeously animated frame of this spare, elegant feature debut from filmmaker Bo-sol Kim, a graduate of the Korean Academy of Film Arts in Seoul. On one hand a classic tragic love story, on the other an unexpected spy thriller engine, the film weaves darkness and muscle into the philosophical poetry of life.—Simone Ling

Bo-sol Kim