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‘Agent of Happiness’ Review: A Documentary Searches for True Contentment in Bhutan
Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó’s Sundance doc explores (and challenges) the Kingdom’s “Gross National Happiness” index.
The documentary by Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó follows the routine of 40-year-old Amber, one of 75 government workers hired to survey people’s happiness on a mathematical scale, and it details not only the lives of his interviewees, but also that of the agent himself. Everything feels ordinary and familiar, at least until the clipboards come out and the duo sits down to ask individual farmers — and eventually, city-dwellers — a series of 148 questions that, to an outsider’s ear, can’t help but sound bizarre. With numerous shots of smartphones, framed as windows to desire, and scenes of casual conversation that slowly reveal lingering discontentment, “Agent of Happiness” uses meaningful visual contrast to scrutinize Bhutan’s narrative about itself.
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