Happy People: A Year in the Taiga

Happy People: A Year In The Taiga is a documentary film by filmmaker Werner Herzog and follows the people of Bakhta, a small village in the middle of the wilderness. There are two ways in; one by helicopter and the other by boat. Supplies are limited and the only real professions are hunter or craftsman, if you’re wise you’re both.

The film follows hunters as they navigate the harsh world of the Siberian Taiga in Russia. The land is so vast and so large you can go months without seeing another soul, and with no radio, television, or telephones you quickly learn to bond with your dogs, your only companions, and possibly savior in harsher times.

It’s really up to you to decide if the title of this documentary is a misnomer or not. I couldn’t help but watch and wonder why anyone would choose to live this sort of life. The area is mostly snowed in, supplies are pretty much nonexistent forcing the hunters to make everything by hand. Inexperience seems as if it would equal a slow and terrible death in the wilderness. You have the threat of bear attacks, starvation, possibly even insanity in the vast emptiness of the wild. Why would anyone choose this life?

As the documentary rolls on you can’t help but notice that the hunters, while sometimes solemn looking, often times can be found with smiles on their faces. In one particular scene where we find our hunter has run out of time to make it back to his main lodging and is forced to stay at a dilapidated lodge he must fix up before it gets to cold, we find him smiling as he works. Is this the acknowledgment that, even though the lodge is dilapidated and he has to work on it it’s at least shelter, or after all his years in the wilderness he still finds joy in knocking thick sheets of snow from rooftops or using his hands to build shelter?

There were times when I felt like the documentary was simply covering logic. If you don’t want to starve you fish. If you don’t want to freeze to death during the winter you find wood and prepare it for the coming season. Even the process of making ski’s, though tedious and ingenious work, seemed like of redundant when looked at from a logical point of view. Basically, at times the documentary seemed a bit dry.

As we rolled on I started to see some pretty amazing things. A pulley system made entirely out of a tree stump and it’s branches with a rope to pull your boat out of the river. The men of Bakhta are carpenters, fishermen, blacksmiths, hunters, trappers, all purpose frontiersmen, but most importantly, problem solvers. Truly amazing stuff.

While I can’t see many people who do not follow documentaries sitting still through the entirety of this particular documentary, I do highly suggest it to anyone who may find this review interesting enough. It’s amazing how much talent these men have and how they choose to live their lives. They are wise, tough, and skilled survivors who should inspire. Basically Herzog has done it again.