Watch A State of Mind For Free

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Touches You

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

i must have seen a different film!!

I don't like to politicize my reviews. I have found that in practically ever land there are amazingly good films--regardless of the political tensions between my country and theirs. For example, although things are a bit tense now with Iran, this nation has made some wonderful films--such as the films of Majid Majidi which manage to transcend nations and ideologies. So, if you are willing to be open-minded and look, you can find good everywhere in my opinion. However, this is a difficult proposition with North Korea. They don't seem to be making movies and there simply is almost no opportunity to look into their culture to see what the nation is like, as there simply is almost nothing going in or out of this isolated nation. However, back about a decade or so ago, a few small glimpses occurred and "A State of Mind" is one of them*. Like it or not, for now this is all we appear to have from which we can learn about this nation. And, because of that, I think it's well worth seeing."A State of Mind" is a film made by a British production company. They were invited to the nation to follow several girls as they prepared for the 'Mass Games'. These games are ENORMOUS pageants in which many days of mass parades and performances are done to honor their leader. Some of these HUGE spectacles required 80,000 people and millions of man- hours according to the film!! The devotion and energy of the participants is difficult to imagine in our Western cultures and I would never imagine folks I know joining in a massive celebration in which the individual is sublimated to the glory of the State. It's just so very foreign--and this is what makes the film hard to stop watching. It is almost like looking onto an alien culture--and this is NOT meant as a criticism at all. What I liked best is that the narrators didn't over-narrate or opine about the nation. Instead, they mostly just showed the people and let them talk. Now I might have liked to have heard about the restrictions placed on the filmmakers--such as where they could and couldn't visit and questions they could or could not ask. But, this is really not all that important--what IS important is that it gives you a glimpse of what is going on in North Korea. See it and learn.By the way, the reason I didn't score this one a bit higher is that I do think that perhaps TOO MUCH of the parading was shown. It became tiresome to watch the girls practicing again and again and again and again for months. However, even this was interesting in a way--imagine how this was for these thousands and thousands of kids who did this! Wow....*Another documentary filmed in North Korea by Western filmmakers was National Geographic's "Inside North Korea"--about a group of doctors who came to the country to perform free eye surgery for many blind North Koreans. It is fascinating--perhaps more so than "A State of Mind" as the now sighted folks did not thank their doctors when their bandages were removed but immediately ran to a poster of their leader, Kim Il Sung and began crying hysterically--thanking HIM for the restoration of their sight.

The previous reviewer has simply bought into the US propaganda against the DPRK. Obviously it's not a rich or particularly successful country, but the family is living a completely normal life for Pyongyang. I have visited there several times and can vouch for it. This is a working class family in the capital - nothing more, nothing less. Note how they compensate for lack of water at times, by storing water in the bathtub and how the commentator explains the rationing of foods. There is no glossing over at all. The only point I thought rang a bit false was the school trip to Mount Paekdu, which "happened" to include the two heroines of the film even though they were not in the same year, and the younger was a very mediocre student according to her own teacher. That was probably arranged to organize some nice footage and a neutral topic.

This is one of the best documentaries I have ever seen. A fascinating insight, warts and all, into North Korea. It shows the highly regimented lives the Nth Koreans live, from the propaganda infused television to the speaker piping rhetoric into the family home. But aside from this you see the human side of the people. The mother telling her daughter to eat more breakfast to make her strong, and the two main characters sneaking into school due to there being late. The focus of the film is the build up to the Mass Games in which 6000 people perform highly orchestrated and ornate display in front of their beloved General, who failed to turn up. And boy what a climax. A fantastic film, and a lesson to the contrary of the constant demonising from the west.

This documentary should have been sponsored by the pot-bellied, dog-eating dictator who runs North Korea. It sure portrays his totalitarian, atrocity-committing regime in a nice light.So we have families who are filthy rich...who get enough to eat...who live in the capital city of Pyongyang...who are entirely devoted to the pot-bellied, dog-eating dictator...And yet we hear nothing of the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, who have died of starvation and disease. We hear nothing of the fact that, in many places besides Pyongyang there are corpses which lie in the streets. We hear nothing of the fact that mass graves have been set up, and bodybags have to be used 3 times or more due to shortages. We hear nothing of the fact that there are over a quarter of a million political prisoners in concentration camps. We hear nothing of the fact that those who push for democracy are often subject to public execution in front of women and children. We hear nothing of the fact that refugee's have been flooding into China for years because North Korea is uninhabitable.We hear nothing of the fact that many North Koreans cook and eat clay and tree bark just to have something in their stomachs.This documentary filmmaker was granted unusual access into North Korea. He had the opportunity to do something spectacular and bring to light the horrors that exist in this wretched nation.And what did he do? He swallowed what the Communist party told him hook, line, and sinker.And in doing so, he has become an enabler, if not an accomplice, to the starvation and purposeful killing of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of brainwashed North Korean citizens.If you want a real idea of what life is like in North Korea, I recommend Dispatches: Undercover in the Secret State. This documentary...this aiding and abetting to the slaughter of innocents, should be burned on a pyre before being buried in the earth.