20/23
Amber, a happiness agent, travels the Bhutanese Himalayas to study people’s happiness. On her remote mountain trek, she seeks fulfillment. I’m not sure if she should be called a “contentment agent.” Instead? Not content with barely having enough, but genuinely content with your life. That’s what Amber sets out to find out as she travels across this small Himalayan kingdom twice a year, trying to find out how its citizens feel about things. She uses a combination of tools to talk to residents old and new, urban and rural, traditional and modern – all with the aim of finding out how the population feels and feeding it back to a government that wants to listen and learn from these attitudes. helping to keep people in a good place – mentally and physically. This documentary introduces us to a group of people whose aspirations vary greatly – sometimes depending on age, ability, location, education/professional ability – but more often than not, what is left is their appreciation for their surroundings. While the West might consider their livelihood more basic, agrarian, undeveloped; their own perception of their existence high in the mountains, with beautiful scenery, fresh air, and the blessings of their gods, seems to offer that elusive sense of less is more and fulfillment. Obviously not everyone is insanely happy, but there is a distinct lack of “revelry.” There is a distinct lack of change, as the reverence for the king and the status quo seem to permeate all demographics, screaming that it’s not broken, so don’t fix it. There are quite a few characters here, some more entertaining and a few downright complicated, and Amber sometimes has to work her way through trying to get meaningful answers to her questions so she can extrapolate the data usefully. In a society that hasn’t exactly advanced technologically, it still seems to give everyone access to the internet, and has a proud tradition of educating everyone to give their decision-making powers – and yet they generally know this magic word. Happy. Owning cows seems to help too!