Happy People: A Year in the Taiga

Werner Herzog & Dmitry Vasyukov – 2010 – Germany

The latest of many forays into the wilderness on filmmaker Werner Herzog’s part; following recent successes like Grizzly Man (2005) and Encounters at the End of the World (2007).  Herzog is no PBS documentarian, though.  His films are sobering penetrations into nature without whimsy or romance; always mediated by his own personal slant, narrated with a voice that is simultaneously discomfiting and tranquil.  Happy People chronicles a year in the life of a Siberian trapper working along the Yenisei River, as well as the community he comes from, hovering between primitive and modern ways of life.  As the seasons come and go, the trapper – who spends most of the year alone in the wild – shares with the camera his work methods, his philosophy and his personal experiences.  A chainsaw and snowmobile are the only technological conveniences he allows himself.  Everything else is done by hand, including carving skis, fashioning traps and building cabins.  It’s a fascinating film, but it’s even more interesting as a cinematic experiment by Herzog.  It is primarily shaped from raw footage taken by Dmitry Vasyukov.  This seems to be the primary basis for Vasyukov’s credit as a co-director, which I tend to feel is a little too generous on Herzog’s part.  It is his involvement that imbues the film with its artistic merit.  Like many of Herzog’s best films – in both fiction and non-fiction – Happy People shows how coming face to face with punishing environments can alternately lead to edification or madness.  This is a rare case where the former happens; hence the title.