समाचार

The co-directors of the engrossing and funny new film Agent of Happiness discuss the pressures of documentary making, living with parents and why they can’t work alone

How often do you get angry? Are you prone to envy? Are you rich in goats? These are the questions Amber Kumar Gurung is employed to ask the citizens of Bhutan. Along with his colleague, fellow “happiness surveyor” Guna Raj Kuikel, he then calculates each subject’s general wellbeing, assigns them a score out of 10 and feeds it into the country’s gross national happiness index.

This singular man and his peculiar profession are now the subject of an eye-opening and frequently very funny new documentary, Agent of Happiness, by directors Arun Bhattarai who is from Bhutan, and Dorottya Zurbó from Hungary.

What does it take to be happy? Filmmakers Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó ravel to the Bhutan, the so-called “happiest country in the world,” to find out. Bhattarai and Zurbó's entry to Sundance Film Festival's World Cinema – Documentary Competition, they tag along Amber Kumar Gurung, one of the government-employed “happiness agents,” on his quest to measure the Gross National Happiness level. Amber and his colleague, Gunaraj Kuikel, interview a wide variety of civilians: married and unmarried, young and old, rural and urban – asking them a smattering of questions from the 148 on the survey.

Early on, we learn that the survey is not as clear-cut as we might imagine. While Amber and Gunaraj may ask about how many cows, goats, or tractors one has on-hand, more discussion is required to draw out individual stories. As people answer – some out of obligation, some to show off, and some vulnerably confessing to issues...