State of Mind
One of the most amazing films I've seen in years. Welcome to the world's largest, weirdest cult: the nation of North Korea. The entire economic engine of this country is aimed toward producing a yearly religious spectacle of unimaginable scale. This film follows two school girls and their family as they practice up to 6 hours per day for 9 months in order to preform a "mass game" for their holy president. Some students are pixels in a stadium-sized human jumbotron. The resulting images and performances are utterly perfect. Not a single speck is out of order. After the ten-day event, the North Koreans go home and watch their flawless work on their one government channel and marvel to themselves about how superior their discipline is, how delighted they are to surrender everything to the greater group. What's frightening is how deeply they buy into the cult. The kids eagerly graduate from the sports spectacle to the military spectacle, which shares the same mentality of the perfect machine. Without saying anything (there's almost no narration) this film reveals what group insanity would be unleashed in military action against North Korea. I'm so glad this incredible film has been made, because in 50 years from now, when the cult is gone, no one will ever believe it was possible on the scale we see here.
-- KK
State of Mind
Directed by Daniel Gordon
2004, 94 min.
$30, DVD
Rent from Netflix
Available from Amazon
