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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A dissapointment, 25 Jan 2004
By A Customer
I purchased "The Last Paradise" after seeing the end of an interview with it's author on CNN, and expected great things. I was hoping for stunning, visually ironic photography of the closed and secretive society that is North Korea. I was hoping to see real North Koreans going about their daily life juxtaposed with the cynical artificiality of Kim-Il-Sungism. Sadly, upon delivery it was to disapoint. The book consists mostly of garish interior shots, in attrociously bad light and with awful picture quality, set against a large (presumably ironic) quote from a North Korean media source and a timeline of the republic's history. There is a decisive lack of any explanation for each photo. The attrocious picture quality cannot be stressed enough - pictures are blurred and pixelated, and one is led to wonder what sort of camera Righetti, a professional photographer, used : my guess is one of those dirt cheap, gimmicky 'keyring' digital cameras they sell in airports. Having said all this, there are about 3 stunningly good photographs, perfectly composed, which brought a huge smile to my face and (almost) made me glad to purchase this book. I accept and understand that photographing in the DPRK must be a troublesome and difficult task, but for the price that this book costs I expected a much, much more finished product .
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Absolute garbage !, 1 Oct 2005
This book is a disappointment ! I was hoping to get some nice insight pictures of everyday life in the "hermit kingdom" , seeing Pyongyang,people in their daily life... Instead, I got some blurred, tatty looking, pixeled pictures... and end up with a book I plan to put somewhere in my attic, as it is completely useless, uninteresting and valueless. even though it s far from being a cheap one as well...
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Not quite the book you expect, 28 Feb 2007
When I bought this book I thought it was quite an interesting buy which actually made me think about the DPRK differently. First of all one shouldn't think of this book as a historical source which will massively broaden the horizons and help one understand North Korea's political or social history. This book is on the other hand an artistic volume exploring the relationship between socialist slogans and influential images of North Korea. Now when I say this I'm not trying to sound pretentious, but an example would be "The Juche cause will overcome any Impeial ideal and result in Socialist Utopia", and on the opposite page there would be an image such as Kim Jong Il or the Army. In my opinion this book is good as it helps one associate political thought and art, which is a key part in the Kim familly's political and personal cults. Even if you're not into that kind of thing it's quite an interesting read
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