Film Review: “A State of Mind”
"A State of Mind" (2004) offers a rare and fascinating glimpse of everyday life in North Korea. British director Daniel Gordon got permission to shoot this documentary in Pyongyang after making a previous film in North Korea, “The Game of Their Lives,” in 2002. Ostensibly a sports story about two girls training for the 2003 national Mass Games—the North Korean equivalent of the World Series, Superbowl and Oscars rolled into one—“State” actually is a revealing portrait of the girls’ school lives, family lives, and belief systems in a country about which not much is known outside of the country.