Faraway, So Close

It is not exagerated to say that North Korea is one of the most isolated countries in the world. It is also the last under Stalinian regime. Here, the cult of personality, first of Kim Il Sung and now of his son Kim Jong Il, has reached unprecedented levels.

No country, no regime, past or present, has ever conceived such an environnement of ubiquitous propaganda, not even those who instigated or experienced the marxist-leninists revolutions of the last century. Not even Nazi Germany.

Photographs by Philippe Chancel.