The title of Daniel Gordon's documentary A State Of Mind refers both to the will of two young North Korean gymnasts and to North Korea itself. Gordon first went there a few years ago to make the 2002 documentary The Game Of Their Lives, about the astonishing run of the North Korean soccer team in the 1966 World Cup competition, and the government trusted the British filmmaker enough to invite him back in 2003 to document the "Mass Games," a synchronized athletic display that celebrates the subordination of the individual to the collective. Gordon records what it takes to get 13-year-old Pak Hyon Sun and 11-year-old Kim Song Yun ready for the pageant—namely, hour after hour of ritualistic training—while also covering what it's like to live in a place where a "worker's siren" blows at 7 a.m., and homes are outfitted with state-sponsored radio sets that can be turned down, but not off.
