A State of Mind

I received A State of Mind for Christmas, but just watched it last night. This is an exclusive documentary about North Korea. It follows two gymnast/dancers through their training for the Mass Games, the largest coordinated spectacle in the world. It involves something like 80,000 dancers, gymnasts and children in a forty-five minute fully coordinated show with costumes and music. It is not just entertainment, it is living, breathing Communism. The self is completely a part of the group and the group does things that could never be accomplished by the self. 80,000 people become one perfect person.

While following the girls' families, we learn that they each live in a small apartment in one of many concrete block apartment buildings in a city that is considered the best in the country, despite frequent power outages and little food. There are three equal "classes": workers, farmers, and intellectuals. One girl is a worker and the other is an intellectual. You receive the job for which you are best suited; in the intellectual family one daughter was good at Tae Kwan Do so she was going into the army, one daughter was good at studying so she was going to be a scientist like her dad and one daughter was artistic so she was the dancer.

There is one tv channel, state controlled, and a radio in the kitchen that can be turned up or down but never off. The biggest holidays are The General's birthday (Kim Jong Il) and The Leader's birthday (Kim Jong Il's father, now deceased).

I had no idea how official, strong, and constant the anti-American rhetoric is. Thousands of people hold up coordinated cards (like in a football stadium) that make a huge picture of evil Americans being shot at by Koreans. When the lights go out, they swear at the evil Imperialist Pigs. The Korean War, "Forgotten" over here, is called something like the Liberation War (I need to see this again to be sure), and the devestation we brought to their country is possible again at any moment. They live in fear of an American attack. Even our own Pentagon estimates that a war in Korea would kill one million people in the first twenty-four hours.

This is 1984. There is a bad guy, a huge army, a constant threat, and a leader who will protect you in exchange for complete obedience and devotion. They call him Father.

The most difficult and intricate part of this film is realizing that these people are not stupid, nor do they want us to get rid of The General, Kim Jong Il. They are a part of a cult that funnels their abilities into doing what it wants. They believe everything the General says. But they are people, living their lives. One girl doesn't study and used to go hide instead of going to dance practice. I used to go hide during compulsory gym class. One mother yells at her daughter to eat more. The other mother coddles her daughter, is best friends with her, and lets her husband and mother-in-law be the strict ones. They have goals, they get recognition for their abilities (being in the second row for the Mass Games), they have hopes and dreams and fears. Their setting may be 1984, but they are not all Winston Smith. They are not looking for a way out.

And they practice what they preach. They see the group moving as one - be it dancers or armies marching - as the most beautiful human action. To join together and become one body, one soul, to even breathe and have their hearts beat in unison - I cannot deny the beauty of coming together as one. This is something I have seen in karate competitions more than once, and something that I know is more than just coordinated movement. It makes people be on the same brainwave. I saw a study once that measured brain activity of athletes, and when the martial artist thrusts his hand toward the board, his brain stops. There was no brain activity as the baseball player took a swing. Some call it getting in "the zone." Some call it "the flow." Some consider it a spiritual experience. I think that this group of people got into the flow together for forty-five minutes. Twice a day. For twenty days.

Is it beautiful? Is it creepy? Is it the highest a group can reach together? Or . . . the lowest?

These people live hard lives because there is such little food. But if there was enough food and electricity and water, would they be "happy"? I don't know. And I don't think it is for me to say. If Kim Jong Il doesn't attack us, I think we should just leave them alone.

I wish I could see what they would say if they really knew about the West. I'm sure they would point to our homeless, our poor and call us hypocrites for criticizing them. And our masses watch Fox News. But we do have freedom of thought, we can decide what truth is for ourselves. Is that worth the risk of homelessness? They are guaranteed housing. We take whatever jobs we can get. They take the job that best suits their abilities.

The North Korean self-image is that of "self-reliance." If they, as a country, work hard enough, they believe everything will be okay. Americans see self-reliance as a virtue, too. But we are self-reliant as individuals, and globally reliant as a country. Ultimately, I think I would kill myself if I was an "intellectual" in North Korea. But then again, I wasn't raised that way. When I look at Communism, I try to remember the negative aspects of America and the positive aspects of North Korea.

But you know what? No matter what aspects of their life are better or worse than ours, Kim Jong Il still has the power to break their hearts.* And that is just not right.

And, ultimately, you can argue back and forth forever about the ideology, but if The General can't feed his country, and they aren't allowed to figure out how to get more food on their own, there is something wrong with the country. Can it be fixed within the framework of Communism? I don't know.

*This is me only ruining the ending a little. Forgive me. See the film.