Sunday Movie - 1pm at Fènix Cafe (BCP Center) - "Happy People: A Year in the Taiga" (U.S./Siberia - 2010)

[NewsLady]

Our films are is shown at The Fènix Cafe - which is a restaurant, so please, don't bring outside food and drinks to the event.  Rather, support our film series by patronizing the Cafe, and be sure to say hello to Joy Alexander, the owner of the Fenix Cafe, and Ana, her cook/waitress.  

As usual, food, drinks and popcorn will be available.  Early birds get the comfy sofas, but if you like, you can bring cushions for the hard restaurant chairs, or folding/camp chairs for more comfort. There is no admission charge, but we ask for voluntary donations to support the program and help pay for the video system. 

 

Below is a list of our remaining films for June  .  We will send out details each movie the week before the screening. 

 

 

 

• June 18:  "The Rocket" (Australian - Laos - 2013)

• June 25: Kurosawa's "Dreams" (Japan - 1990)

 

 

David Van Harn 
Boquete Film Club Curator 

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"Happy People: A Year in the Taiga" (U.S. - 2010)   Not Rated - However, be aware that this documentary is about fur trappers, and there are graphic images associated with that occupation 

  Link to trailer 

Like many of the films I enjoy sharing, this documentary tells the story of the trappers of Bakhta, a incredibly remote village in the heart of the Siberian Taiga, where daily life has changed little in over a century.   This small group of our fellow human beings live in a remote, barely accessible region of our planet, are are comfortable in their lives, and make the best of what life offers them.  

From the Roger Ebert website: 

Like "Grizzly Man," [Werner] Herzog's latest documentary, "Happy People: A Year in the Taiga" is mostly built around another filmmaker's priceless footage. Russian videographer Dmitry Yasyukov shot four documentaries about Russian fur trappers in the Siberian Taiga, a remote wilderness larger than the whole of the United States. Herzog happened upon the films at an L.A. friend's house and became as obsessed with their beauty as he once was with Timothy Treadwell's footage of grizzly bears.

His authorial signature comes through in the way he edits the material and gives it meaningful context through narration. It's a touching gesture, one filmmaker finding the glory in another's images and amplifying it through his own generous and idiosyncratic vision. What Herzog gleans from Yaskyuov's exhaustive material is a simple observation: The men of the Taiga are heroes of rugged individualism.

“They live off the land and are self reliant, truly free,” Herzog intones, as a Klaus Badelt score works to send a chill of admiration up our spines. “No rules, no taxes, no government, no laws, no bureaucracy, no phones, no radio, equipped only with their individual values and standard of conduct.”