Happy People: A Year in Taiga - movie review

Four of five possible ticket stubs

          Munich born Werner Herzog produced, directed and narrates this haunting film about the small village of ermine and sable trappers in the foreboding Siberian countryside. This subtitled documentary focuses on the arduous life of one veteran fur trader who spends most of the year away from his family in order to support an austere and colorless lifestyle. And he is happy doing so although, compared to our raucous lifestyle, the existence of the village members looks depressingly difficult.

          While we may work to get ahead, to have vacations, to enjoy a comfortable life, and perhaps to make things more luxurious for our families, these men work in order to survive. Everything is done by hand:  houses are built, boats are carved, traps are made each year and frozen water and land is confronted and conquered ...continuously. Food for themselves and their priceless dogs is a focal point.

          As the title suggests, the time span of a year is viewed with only a slight dot of green appearing in mid-summer. The other three seasons are gray, gray, and gray decorated with brown houses and muddy farm yards with snow on them almost all year. The long summer nights do make growing vegetables in protected pens very rewarding. Along with an abbreviated summer comes hoards of mosquitoes that made me itch just to see them swarming the men and their dogs.

          I enjoyed this documentary very much….not in the National Geographic way but in the way that sidestepped any major tragedies in order to give me an interesting glimpse into a lifestyle I’d never heard of nor seen before. I believe the happiness these men and their families have comes from being completely self-reliant. They pride themselves on not having to deal with laws, taxes, phones, traffic or any of the modern day things that we’ve embraced in order to simplify -  but often complicating -  our lives.

          The lives of the people in Taiga are not so difficult that they miss the beauty of nature, that they don’t have time to appreciate a simple cup of delicious tea. They love that hunting brings them closer to nature. I was convinced when the veteran trader says, “…industry and perseverance are at the top of our agenda.”

          I recommend this movie to anyone who wants a break from the routine “Escape to the Movies” sort of film. I don’t think you’ll regret this stirring field of vision into the human spirit in unyielding conditions.