Happy People: A Year in the Taiga
So many of us talk about how hard it is us to survive these days. But consider the notion of ‘survival’ as portrayed in this striking documentary – a study of the bare bones lifestyles of indigenous hunters in the Siberian Taiga where winter temperatures can fall below -50ºc.
The action, such as it is, centres on the village of Bakhtia, population 300 and accessible only by boat and helicopter. The narrative follows the men’s lives, in particular the trapper Gennady, who lives in a hut with no glass over the windows, builds his own traps, and has no human contact for months on end.
Restless and prone to drinking too much when they are cooling their heels in town, the men suddenly come alive when they are pitting themselves against the elements. The cultural values that have sustained them for centuries are the ones that make them feel most connected to a sense of place and the hardship only increases their satisfaction.
In a world where our encounters with ‘other cultures’ are so often co-opted and managed by travel agents, chambers of commerce and ministries of culture, this is a raw sometimes difficult film to watch.
For the people of Bakhtia, happiness seems to be found in an ‘if ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ approach to life and its daily rituals.
Even so, the lessons of the film are difficult to extract and are certainly not handed to the viewer on a plate. There’s no clumsy exposition contrived to make it all make sense to an urban dweller on the other side of the world. Nor is there any obvious happy ending.
Perhaps if Happy People asks anything of the viewer it is to enquire how much of our own contented sense of place we have traded away by aspiring to be ‘citizens of the world’.
Happy People: A Year in the Taiga
(Second Sight films, 2011)
Running time: 94 minutes
Director/Narrator: Werner Herzog
£15.99
- This review appeared in Geographical magazine circa March 2012.
