Happy People: A Year in the Taiga

ANOTHER EXTREME LIFE EXAMINED BY HERZOG
Filmmaker Werner Herzog (GRIZZLY MAN, ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD, CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS), is drawn to extremes and the challenging edge on which some people live their lives. With co-director Dmitry Vasyukov, Herzog takes us the remote heart of the Siberian Taiga and the village of Bakhtia, where about 300 people live on the bank of the Yenisei River virtually untouched by the modern world. This isolated wilderness has no phone connection, running water or medical assistance and can only be reached by river or chopper. With the exception of power saws and snowmobiles, the people maintain their culture and live as they have for hundreds of years, maybe much longer. Herzog’s distinctive narration covers and colors the life of one trapper through four seasons as he hunts, makes his skis, boat and hunter’s cabin. So much was unsaid, but what was on the screen was mesmerizing. It’s good to be reminded that in our day, part of our human family lives in a...

A Man and his Dogs
This documentary takes place in The Taiga Forest eco-region of Eastern Siberia, and as the story opens and various people are interviewed,they all seem to be truly happy although they are all living a hardscrabble existence, and would surely all qualify for government assistance in our country. Yet the men in this community who make their living by trapping [sables primarily] seem to think they have the best of all worlds, in that they are free to choose, work enough to survive and provide for their families, and then enjoy what appears as a cohesive community life with all the others in their small village of approximately 300 people total. The main character Gnady [spelling], a trapper exclaims at the beginning of his interview that no man can ever be considered a true trapper without his dog[s]. He has two hunting dogs at the time of filming, of some mixed lineage, but I would say looked mostly like what you would expect in this hard land - Siberian Huskies. He praised all of...

Not a life of quiet desperation
Happy People: A Year in the Taiga

Having just re-watched Nanook of the North)recently, Herzog's Happy People revisits people who live hand-to-mouth in a place where the summers last about as long as a Twitter trend and the winters determine your every action in life. We meet our central characters with a much more serious tone than we met Nanook and his family almost one hundred years ago. Instead of Canada, however, they subside in Siberia with semioccasional modern conveniences (chainsaws and snowmobiles are all that come to mind). The landscapes sometimes remind me of the bleak Wisconsin winters of Stroszek and other times mosquito-infested shots from Grizzly Man.

More importantly, however, is the way the camera reads their faces. These are...

Click to Editorial Reviews