Happy

While I enjoyed some of this film, a couple of things bothered me. Judging from the narrator speaking English, the audience of this film was primarily people who speak English. It is inexcusable in 2011 to not have interpretation either with voice over or subtitles of the non-English portions. Glad the people from India, Okinawa, and other non-English speaking people spoke to the cameras. It might have been useful to know what you were talking about.

The other thing that concerned me was the likelihood of the ultra rich to say "we don't need to pay you a living wage. It won't make you any happier anyway." They only briefly mention "once basic needs are met". So I can see this film joining the fake theory of trickle down economics to become part of the "arguments of justification: used by that group to explain to themselves why it's OK to holding on to more and more of the wealth.

This is a movie where the subject matter is far more important than the quality of the movie itself (which is good). Had I received messages like this when I was young, I am sure I would have made fewer mistakes.

Young persons understand that happiness is a life goal but they are often confused among conflicting messages on how to get there. By illustrating those who have achieved happiness as well as those who have not, the movie could potentially be very useful in helping young people make responsible and fulfilling life choices.

So hopefully this little movie will be recognized as a motivational tool for the young and used in our classrooms and in other venues where teens might be receptive to its message.

Tom Shadyac, the director of the Nutty Professor read in a NY times article that although the US was one of the richest countries it was nowhere near the happiest and also noted from his own experience materially successful people he knew were often less happy than their gardeners. Intrigued he funded director Roko Belic to make this movie investigating what makes people happy. He goes to Denmark, Namibia, Scotland, China, Kenya, Brazil, Japan, Bhutan and India and interviews a bunch of people and the result is quite an interesting movie on how things play out. They start with a guy in India living in poverty in one of the worse slums but he's about as happy as the average American partly because there is a lot of community involvement. In Japan he meets the Okinawa islanders who generally have a cheery simple life and live to about 100 and also the family of a pressured salary man who dropped dead in his thirties from stress and overwork. It's interesting to see the contrasts and it may well give some inspiration for your own life.

I love this documentary. I found it years after it was released but it's one I come back to a lot. Excellent reminder of where happiness lies.

I'm going to leave out my overall feelings about this movie but WHY would you spend so much time interviewing people in Japan and then NOT INTERPRET IT! There is no close captioning or interpretation of what they are saying at all. That's a lot of wasted time and material.