快乐的人们

Happy People: A Year in the Taiga: Documentary or Poetry?

http://postdefiance.com/happy-people-a-year-in-the-taiga-documentary-or-poetry/

Nobody tells me what to do…I am my own man.

Such is the claim of one of the virile characters in Happy People: A Year in the Taiga, a documentary co-directed by Dmitry Vasyukov and the prolific German filmmaker Werner Herzog.

These words seem familiar to an American audience, almost stereotypical of the mentality by which we are regularly defined. But the words are spoken by a Russian sable trapper living in the middle of Siberia with nary an outlet to civilization as we know it. “Amurrican?” Far from it.

The film follows a year in the lives of sable trappers in a remote Bakhtian village: a year that, like every other, is a quest to survive the harsh conditions. Herzog and Vasyukov present the narrative as a slice-of-life drama, an everyday epic for which the camera crew is merely along for the ride.

Herzog and company are enthralled with the lives of the men they’re following. In fact, the directorial duo seems more than glad to cooperate with the decidedly masculine culture they document. Women make brief and obligatory appearances; the rest of the time, we spectators follow the Russian men through the wilderness and let Herzog’s narration wash over us.

When that smooth German accent does its best, it easily persuades us of the extraordinary nature of the men we’re watching. Yet Herzog’s narration can be just a little problematic. At one point he rises to sublime heights of description/sinks into the worst kind of glorified othering:

“Now, out on their own, the trappers become what they essentially are: happy people. Accompanied only by their dogs, they live off the land. They are completely self-reliant. They are truly free. No rules, no taxes, no government, no laws, no bureaucracy, no phones, no radio, equipped only with their individual values and standard of conduct.”

As this voiceover overlaps with symphonic music, we see footage of a man steering a canoe upriver by means of an outboard motor. Herzog goes on to tell us that this man’s name is Mikhail Tarkovsky, relation of the acclaimed Russian film director Andrei Tarkovsky. In a truly odd juxtaposition, the film insists on the technological self-sufficiency of the Taiga people, while aligning them with modern advancements like the internal combustion engine and one of the most technologically advanced forms of art: cinema.

And Herzog’s narration isn’t the only aspect that rings less as documentary and more as poetry. The invisibility of the camera’s presence that makes this otherwise lovely journey is also problematic. A documentary common practice, to be sure, but Herzog is among the most adept and savvy of documentarians; he knows what he’s doing when he makes the choice to keep the presence of a non-native film crew completely out of the camera’s field of vision. The technique potentially ignores the camera’s very real and very foreign presence on that home turf, keeping at arm’s length a world that it conflictingly wants to bring within our reach.

By distancing the audience from the Siberian snow and its inhabitants, Herzog is free to perform a documentary of poetry, a free-form ode to an idealized people that he profoundly admires and wants us to admire, too. And what’s wrong with poetry? Nothing, of course…but beware of poetry masquerading as simple history.

To be fair, Herzog acknowledges the presence of chainsaws and snowmobiles in this land of self-reliance. And the camera records myriad other technologies that have somehow made their way into this inaccessible wilderness. And herein lies the real hazard of Herzog’s hidden camera: there is no such thing as a “pure” culture since every culture is the progeny and interpretation of others. By holding aloft the Taiga people as “other,” therefore perhaps better, idealization becomes falsification.

Herzog wants us to see this world as unblemished by all that is modern, a time warp into an edenic realm. In so doing, he makes choices about what we see and what we don’t. But enough contradictions slip through the cracks to reveal his construal of this society.

Even a glorified interpretation is an interpretation, not equal to the original.

But to be even more fair, the subjects that Happy People documents deserve our attention. As we complain about spotty 4G service and navel-gaze about “the nature of art” and other such privileged questions, there remain folks in this world whose isolation brings out something we are unlikely to see in ourselves.

When the Siberian trapper says he is his own man, he says it without the pretense that we almost reflexively hear in such a statement. He knows his dependence on the land, the ecosystem of which he is a part. When he recounts his dog’s death at the hands of a bear, we are not likely to roll our eyes at his tears, perceiving his reliance on and love for an animal whose loyalty allowed him to keep on living.

The moral of this story is not: “Eat your dinner; there are starving children in Africa.” On the other hand, it’s not far from it.

第二篇： by | Steven Boone

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/happy-people-a-year-in-the-taiga-2013

Film director Werner Herzog's voice is so distinct and soothing that those of us who swear by it as a tonic for the soul sometimes assume the man is a household name. I made that mistake recently while chatting with a friend who praised Christoph Waltz's performance in "Django Unchained." "Yeah," I said, "The only person who could play a multilingual, multi-genius German impresario better than Waltz would have been Herzog."

"Wha? What's a hearse hog?"

I played her Herzog's reading of the children's book Go the Fuck to Sleep and his narration for Ramin Bahrani's short film "Plastic Bag." She was hooked. The mellifluous German accent, that rising-falling modulation, worked its magic.

And that was just Werner lending his singular sound to other people's projects.

Herzog's voiceover narration has been as powerful a utility for his own potentially ponderous documentaries as Clint Eastwood's profile has been for the latter's tough-guy dramas. The films could probably stand on their own merits without That Voice, but why should they?

Like "Grizzly Man," 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.”

In nearly every Herzog documentary there is a speech like this one, wherein the director reveals in plain language his passion for his subject. This particular song of praise says that people who live simply, honestly and responsibly are generally happy people. It also sings of tradition more eloquently than Teyve in "Fiddler on the Roof." Work and tradition abide. One hunter boasts that his skill is an inheritance of a thousand years of practice and refinement.

There is another way to interpret Yasyukov's material, as a bleak, miserablist view of the hunters' circumstances that emphasizes the fact that they hardly ever have a moment's rest. Work is a constant, and nature always threatens to freeze, drown, starve or (in the form of aggressive bears) eat them. This is the perspective a young Herzog might have chosen. “Overwhelming and collective murder” is how he described nature during the making of his bleakest, angriest epic, "Fitzcarraldo." (His grandiose rants were just as fun to listen to when they were depressing.)

Instead, this time we get celebratory scenes of a hunter and his son serenely enduring mosquitoes that swarm over every centimeter of exposed flesh during a dank Taiga summer. Yasyukov's footage exhaustively documents the hunters' work processes, so Herzog uses it to take us through each step of making mosquito repellent from scratch. (To my surprise, it's similar to preparing old-fashioned blackface.)

Though they use manufactured equipment like snowmobiles and wear some presumably factory-made clothing, much of the technology these trappers and their families employ is built from scratch. In a fascinating segment that suggests Herzog and Yasyukov would produce great instructional DVDs ("How to Survive the Apocalypse"), a hunter shows us how to make wooden skis that will outlast the most expensive synthetic designer ones.

Fascination with processes and with the men who master them to become expert woodsmen leaves Herzog no time to address their wives and children, whom we glimpse only at hunting sendoffs and when the men return to their homes loaded down with quarry. Whatever routines occupy the wives is of little interest to either Yasyukov or Herzog. What we do catch of them says that they, too, are very happy people. “I'm alone again,” one wife says, as her man heads out on another long expedition. In a typical arthouse fiction film, she would be the face of uncertainty and despair in that moment. In "Happy People," she just states the fact with a bittersweet smile. Herzog cuts away (or Yasyukov's cameraman stops recording) quickly.

The dogs, on the other hand, receive rapturous attention. One thing I learned from "Happy People" is that a dog in the Taiga is like a horse in the American Frontier: not merely a “best friend” but a lifeline. A brooding hunter becomes emotional when recalling a dog who gave up her life defending him from a bear attack. We see the dogs set to work with military discipline. Herzog adds some stirring, heartening Badelt music to a scene of a dog keeping pace with his master's snowmobile for nearly a hundred miles.

So the focus is tight, but the love comes through in many ways. Herzog mentions that one of the fishermen who shot some of the footage is a relative of the great Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. The instant that name came up, I was struck with memories of all the odes to Russia's natural beauty in Tarkovsky's nostalgic films. It made me consider that Herzog might have taken on this project as a gesture of German-Russian relations—an interdependent association now, but historically one of horrific wars. Imagine a Japanese filmmaker celebrating Chinese traditions. (Actually, there are films like Kenji Mizoguchi's Japanese take on Chinese history, "Princess Yang Kwei-fei," and they tend to be weirdly interesting.)

The fact that Herzog shot none of the footage comes across most strongly when we briefly visit a couple of indigenous Taiga people. They build a boat with staggering precision, row it out onto the icy waters, and then they are gone from the film. I can't imagine Herzog having access to folks whose traditions go even further back than the Russians leaving it at that.

All of this apparent Walden-like freedom struck close to home for me—or would, if I had a home. I stepped off the grid in New York City four years ago, trying to find a simpler way to live that would free me of corporate wage-slavery. Four years later, I've found that such freedom is virtually impossible in American cities. To live as free and clear as the men of the Taiga do, I would have to go to a farm, a commune—or the Taiga. On a landscape of concrete, there is no hunting or homesteading, just purchasing and renting. Parks and community gardens preserve some testy relationship with the natural world, but, let's face it, the world I and most folks reading this essay occupy keeps us dependent upon corporate delivery systems for our survival essentials. Are we happy this way?

Herzog, whose films have captured ecstatic faces in prisons, asylums, rainforests and arctic base camps, would probably answer, “That is up to you, my friend. You must work with whatever you have been given,” in a voice that could make a man caught in a bear trap smile.

电影里，好多我喜欢的元素。例如就目前来说，因为在准备新房装修，所以看了很多家具，主题都是实木居多。然后电影里，哇塞，好多的原木，还有会木工的猎人，做了好棒的木屋和独木舟。然后，还有我一直想养的，因为没能力养而没能成真的狗，好多好漂亮的狗。猎人说，在狗三个月的时候，他就可以看出来这是不是一只好狗了，而且绝无差错，而我呢，能拥有一只狗就不错了。还有好多鱼，我很喜欢钓鱼，而他们那儿好多鱼，不但多，而且个头也很大。还有南方人非常羡慕的雪！一直想体验一下滑雪，奈何在南方，人造雪场，一个小时好几百，又钱包伤不起。还有很漂亮的景色，空旷自然，让人返璞归真。

评论说西伯利亚的生活条件好艰苦，并他们不快乐。从片里人们传递的表情来看，他们确实很辛苦，而且未来的地区发展并并不乐观。人越来越少，经济也越来越差了。但是从个人来说，猎人们的快乐，并没有离开他们。

《快乐的人们》是德国导演沃纳·赫尔佐格拍摄的一部记录西伯利亚中心地区一群特殊人们的纪录片。西伯利亚对我而言，就是严寒和寂寥的代名词，甚至它更是一片流放之地。几年的旅行中也认识过几个来在西伯利亚的朋友，但他们似乎已经深受现代文明的影响，走出了那片常年冰冷之土，融入了都市的生活。

西伯利亚的中心有一座只有300人的村庄，要到达这只有两种途径，一是乘坐直升机，一是乘船，在冰雪融化之际他们乘船穿越俄罗斯最大的河流，叶尼塞河，来到这个被针叶树包围的地方。它远离一切喧嚣，就如陶渊明笔下的桃花源一样，被人遗忘，像一座”冰雪天堂“一样，导演记录了这座村庄中最小众的猎人们的一年四季，春夏秋冬。

西伯利亚气候常年寒冷无比，即使是春季，到处也藏留着冬的气息。直到叶尼塞河开始融化，我第一次看到了河中冰水溶解的生命力，巨大的冰块发出了春的呐喊，低沉地咆哮着流向远方。导演采访的其中一名猎人，1970年和朋友从莫斯科来到这里，他们一无所有，就连冬衣都没有，所有的生活所需全部依靠双手来创造。猎人说：”我们虽然为猎人，但我们却鄙视贪婪，做猎人不可以贪婪，不能无限制地索取自然。“

夏季从5月开始，但是初夏的他们依然得穿冬衣。夏季最令人苦恼的就是蚊子，黑压压地上百只蚊子围绕着村子里的每一个人，村里没有药店，他们就地取材把桦树皮取下熬制成焦油涂在脸上。夏季白昼变长，甚至可以长达20个小时，这是一个令人欢愉的季节，但猎人们也要不断地为秋冬即将到来的捕猎季节做准备。采访了村里的一家本地人，他们的样子完全是黑发黑眼，这些原住民还保留了他们原始的木偶崇拜，家中的老奶奶把木偶珍藏着，却在一场意外的大火中把这古老的记忆燃烧殆尽。夏末松鼠开始收集松仁之际，也就意味着夏季的告别，他们完全遵循着自然的规律，也和松鼠一样开始储存秋冬的果仁。夏季末，从都市里终于来了一个豪华邮轮，原来是政客为了选票到这里拉票，这是四年里他们第一次来到这里。

秋季是收获的季节，种植在树上的果子，蔬菜都是采摘的时候，秋季也是捕鱼的好节气，猎人们自己砍树制作独木舟，似乎还用着史前的方法拿着三叉戟去湖水中捕鱼，秋季是猎头最开心的时节，“猎人们，只身闯荡，只有几只狗的陪伴，远离故土，完全靠自己，他们真正地自由，没有规则，没有税收，没有政府，没有法律，没有官僚组织，没有电话，没有收音机，只带着他们自己的价值和行为准则。“其中一名猎人说：”很多人都是一边工作，一边欣赏美景，猎人的工作让你和针叶树之间的距离拉近了。“

冬季的西伯利亚气温降到负50度，似乎一切都在这冬季冬眠了，而猎人却要在这时开始捕猎紫貂，他们在针叶树林里建造了自己的猎房，全手工木质的小屋成为了他们在这极度冰冷之地的避难所。在这样极端的气候下，每一个猎人都需要他们最忠实的猎狗，猎人会通过各种方法找到最合适的猎狗，并同他们并肩战斗，猎狗不仅是捕猎的伙伴，更是他们孤身在这森林中的朋友。

《快乐的人们》就是这样一群“挣扎”在生存和生活边缘的猎人们，看着他们的生活，好像还活在人类发展进程中的早期阶段，但他们自足的心，却似乎没有被这严寒所封闭，自在地生活在广袤的针叶树林里。

这群生活在西伯利亚的猎人们离群索居，让我想到百年前，美国作家梭罗独自来到瓦尔登湖畔写下的文字，把它分享给寻觅快乐的你。“不管你的生活多么的卑微，都必须勇于坚强地面对生活；不要逃避，不要谩骂，因为它快的成都，还比不上你，你最富有的时候，往往就是你最贫穷的时候。挑三拣四的人，即便在天堂也照样挑剔。爱你的生活吧，尽管贫穷。即便在贫民窟，你也可以拥有快乐，激动，荣耀的生活。洒在夫人宅邸的阳光，于洒在穷人窗棂上的一样明亮。所有人门前的积雪在春天一样融化。”

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今天看的这部电影虽然只有短短的90分钟的时间，但是在这90分钟的时间里面，我却享受到了一种独有的快乐，这种快乐让我明白生命其实还有另外一层含义，生命的另外一层含义让我认认真真地思考过，让我勤勤恳恳地感受过。

这里是赫尔佐格的巴赫塔，这里是地球上的天堂，这里砍伐树木，建造渔船，捕鱼，收获食物，四季分明的天，一切的一切都显得那么的恬淡安静，一切的一切都显得那么引人入胜，一切的一切都让我体会到了一种快乐。

我看着漫天大雪的情景，冥思良久，然后陶醉于其中的盛景。

然后思索，如果这部电影是在大银幕上看到的话该有多么地好，那样的话我会更加身临其境，更加想要去看一看这个地方。

这电影里的人生，是我永远的梦境

看到这部电影的时候，镜头刚刚开始，我就被电影里面的一种岁月斑驳的声音吸引了；这种声音引人入胜，我觉得这种声音真的太让我震撼了，生命中怎么会有一种声音，一出场...便让我体会到了一种“生机”，我觉得这段声音完完全全可以放给全人类听一听的。

再往后，就是这里的人们生活的痕迹。

这里的猎人们来到了这个地方，生活着，然后打猎。虽然这个地方很孤独，连讯号也没有，但是我还是觉得....他们很快乐，他们比我快乐，他们在和狗狗一起生活的过程之中体会到了数不尽的快乐，他们明白生的含义，明白自己的追求，为了自己打猎的愿望一直一直坚持着，一直一直不放弃。

夏天的时候，这里有很多很多的蚊子，蚊子出现的时候...他们只能够依靠桦树烤出来的焦油来抹在自己的身体上，脸庞上才能够抵御这些蚊子，如果不抹的话，这些蚊子可能会把狗狗的血给吸干吧，而且这些蚊子在人的身体上静静地趴着，伺机而动。我觉得这样反手一下我就能结束十几只蚊子的生命吧，毫不费力。

然后打的自己满手是血。

即使是到了夏天的时候，这里依然还是很冷的。即使如此，这些蚊子还是很猖狂。

夏天的时候，也是大家制作独木舟的时候。看了一下他们用的木头，全都是纯实木，非常好的一种工具，他们用的这种制作独木舟的木头还必须用那种最好的木头，这种木头长得很漂亮，很直，所以说他们才会被选用。

刚开始这些木头有了独木舟的雏形之后，我还是觉得挺好看的。可是再往后，这邪恶木头被涂上了黑乎乎的油漆的颜色...我瞬间就懵了；果然我还是看颜值的。

然后还是觉得在巨大的现实世界之中空虚寂寞的我，看起来显得如此的孤独。

自由的生活总是那么令人向往

在无穷无尽的树林和无穷无尽的寒冷里面，猎人们按部就班地工作，孤独，与狗狗相伴着，你看不出任何情绪，他们却说这其实就是他们热爱的生活，这其实就是他们的生命，如果有朝一日，你不让他们过这样的日子的话，他们觉得自己的生命简直已经没有了任何的意义。

这就是这些人生存的意义，这其实就是生命。

我看着这些猎人们，日出而作，日落而息。依靠一些原始的方式在河边捕鱼，制作独木舟，做饭，打猎...

看上去很苦很苦，可是他们看上去又是那么地快乐，那么地幸福，那么地知足。

我冥思良久，觉得说：“可能这就是我不曾拥有的东西吧。”我不曾拥有这样的快乐，我不曾拥有这样的坚定，我不曾拥有这样的满足，我什么都没有。

这里的人们，有勤劳的，也有酗酒的机会主义者，有猎人口中自己贪婪的同行，也有那些依靠制作独木舟生存的人。这里广袤无垠，人只能够与狗狗相伴，但是只要勤劳，你就可以得到很多很多的东西。

“勤劳，”取之有道。

这里的人们自由、独立、忠诚，这是一片净土，也希望这里永远是一片快乐的净土。

Happy People: A Year in the Taiga 2010 Dmitry Vasyukov, Werner Herzog

看了小森林后想起Herzog这部纪录片 森林中的猎人和狗 同样是表现一种前工业时代的生活方式 猎人的话清醒至极 显然他对自己的生活有充分的自省 他说“猎人是诚实的” 爱他得猎狗 知道如何训练他们 但仍然和他们保持距离 他清楚人和家畜之间的情感和界限 人和自然之间的法则 人从未凌驾于自然之上 只存在于自然之间 这个朴素的思想可以推及到现代社会 尽管在人类视角下似乎是智人主宰了地球和地球上其他种类生物 但这和蚂蚁筑建巨大的蚁穴并无两样 倾覆只是一夕风雨 人类为之自傲的文明即使以地球的时间尺度衡量也只是沧海桑田

这个猎人几乎是同Herzog的镜头一样冷静而理性 他过着一种质朴理性的生活 康德的道德律和星空同存于猎人心中

记得尼采好像也说过类似的话 人类的平静生活需要仿效西伯利亚农村和东方的村落中的生活态度 但这并非在否定工业社会和现代文化 城市中有太多的影响人判断力的表象和遮蔽 未被现代工业开发过的森林和农村环境相对简单 人对自我的认识和感受也就相对清晰 而现代人对自我和自我感受的要求空前提高 代表或者伪装成这类文化的消费产品也逐渐占据市场 用消费满足精神需求从来都是饮鸩止渴 另一类人回归理性式禁欲甚至宗教式禁欲 历史已经证明违反人类自然欲望的行为最终会导致更多的危机 制度的不完善和理性的不完善导致现代社会最终的方向危机重重 历史的终结不会是现代社会 而是世界大战 核危机 流行疫病 外星人 或者彗星撞地球

这里的俄罗斯人，生活在与世隔绝的原始森林当中，他们通往外界只有两种方式，一种是直升机，另外一种就是在夏天河流解冻时的船。他们住着木屋，保持着祖祖辈辈传下来的生活方式。 看了这部纪录片，给我的内心深处带来了一些震撼，这种震撼来自于对生命真正意义的思考，人活着的意义是什么？我们努力工作，还车贷房贷，剩余的钱还要投资在小孩的教育上，我们这样的追求是什么呢？首先是生存，其次还想生活质量好一点儿，能够有能力做一些自己喜欢做的事儿。可是我们就这样在忙忙碌碌中不知不觉的老去，终于有一天，我们有时间了，可是却没有精力去做曾经梦想做的事情了。 猎人们的生活是纯粹的，他们所有的劳动工具和食物来源全凭自己的双手和从祖辈传下来的技能。春天，猎人们这个时候设置陷阱，收集建筑材料，清理庇护所的积雪；夏天，蚊子多的令人恐怖，这个季节猎人们修补小木屋，并开始储备冬天狩猎时所需的物资；秋天，已经开始下雪，猎人们需要检查修补小木屋陷阱，完成最后的物资储备；冬天，是捕猎的季节，雪地摩托是主要的交通工具，但是这个时候猎人是孤独的，只有狗的陪伴。