Sundance review: 'Beyond Utopia' is a compelling documentary, paced like a thriller, about people struggling to escape North Korea

Living in North Korea, the documentary “Beyond Utopia” tells us often, is horrible — and getting out, as the courageous family at the center of the film shows us, is almost as difficult.

Director Madeleine Gavin introduces to Pastor Seungeun Kim, who operates a network of volunteers from his church in Seoul, to get North Koreans wanting to defect out of the country safely. That’s no small task, since anyone trying to get out of North Korea is branded a traitor to the “great leader” Kim Jong-Un, and faces torture, beatings and possibly execution.

Also, there’s no easy out of North Korea. Crossing directly into South Korea is practically impossible, thanks to the 2 million landmines along the border between the two Koreas. So North Koreans have to cross the Yalu River into China, then travel hundreds of miles to cross into Vietnam, then Laos, and finally into Thailand — the first non-Communist country on the route. The Chinese have heavy surveillance, lots of cops and military, and a policy of sending any North Korean defector back if caught. 

The movie follows Pastor Kim as he works the telephones, arranging with brokers to get people out of North Korea. We see this happen with two cases. In one, defector Soyeon Lee is making calls to get her 17-year-old son, Cheong, across the Yalu; in the other, the Ro family — an 80-year-old woman, her adult daughter and son-in-law, and the couple’s two little girls — is attempting the trek in vans, on foot through jungles, and over rivers.

The footage of the Ro family’s ordeal — much of it taken by the family on cellphone cameras — is breathtaking, as it shows us how one little slip can endanger everyone, including Pastor Kim, who joins the family on the last leg of the trip. (A title card at the beginning of the film stresses that there were no re-creations used.) 

Intercut with the footage of these rescues are interviews with defectors and other experts on North Korea. The most compelling is Hyeonseo Lee, who detailed her escape from South Korea in her memoir “The Girl With Seven Names.”

Gavin shows she’s familiar with the first rule of documentaries: If you have a good story, don’t get in the way. The directorial flourishes are minimal, and the bits of animation that illustrate what happens to people who run afoul of Kim Jong Un are an elegant way to show what can’t be filmed.

Ultimately, Gavin’s work in “Beyond Utopia” is exemplified by her editing, which turns the Ro family’s struggle into a chase thriller — one with a remarkably detailed historical backstory.

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‘Beyond Utopia’

★★★1/2

Playing in the U.S. Documentary competition of the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Screens again Sunday, Jan. 29, 9 a.m., Eccles Theatre, Park City. Also screening online on the Sundance Film Festival platform, through Sunday, Jan. 29, at 11:59 p.m. Mountain time. Not rated, but probably PG-13 for descriptions of torture, and children in peril. Running time: 116 minutes; in Korean, with subtitles.