Films like Happy People: A Year in the Taiga.

Happy People: A Year in the Taiga (2010) reads as Warm, slow-burn, measured documentary, grounded in texture. Ambivalent, intimate, measured. Every film below is ranked by distance across the same twelve hand-scored axes — with what it keeps, and where it walks away. Not a genre dump.

Hanji (2011) poster
1. Hanji2011

Keeps the heightened unreality and the cold, bleak undertow; trades toward a patient, unhurried pace.

Medicine for Melancholy (2008) (2008) poster
2. Medicine for Melancholy2008

Keeps the heightened unreality and the unmistakable directorial hand; trades toward a patient, unhurried pace.

Tomboy (2011) (2011) poster
3. Tomboy2011

Keeps the heightened unreality and the unmistakable directorial hand; trades toward a patient, unhurried pace.

The Apple (1998) (1998) poster
4. The Apple1998

Keeps the patient, unhurried pace and the heightened unreality — one of the nearest reads in the catalogue.

Still the Water (2014) poster
5. Still the Water2014

Keeps the patient, unhurried pace and the heightened unreality; trades toward a cold, bleak undertow.

Starlet (2012) (2012) poster
6. Starlet2012

Keeps the heightened unreality and the unmistakable directorial hand; trades toward a patient, unhurried pace.

Radiance (2017) poster
7. Radiance2017

Keeps the patient, unhurried pace and the heightened unreality; trades toward a cold, bleak undertow.

Cherry Tobacco (2014) poster
8. Cherry Tobacco2014

Keeps the patient, unhurried pace and the heightened unreality; trades toward a cold, bleak undertow.

Microhabitat (2017) poster
9. Microhabitat2017

Keeps the patient, unhurried pace and the heightened unreality; trades toward a cold, bleak undertow.

The Summer of Sangaile (Lithuania) (2015) poster
10. The Summer of Sangaile (Lithuania)2015

Keeps the patient, unhurried pace and the heightened unreality; trades toward a cold, bleak undertow.

The Summer of Sangaile (2015) poster
11. The Summer of Sangaile2015

Keeps the heightened unreality and the unmistakable directorial hand; trades toward a airy, open telling.

In Jackson Heights (2015) poster
12. In Jackson Heights2015

Keeps the patient, unhurried pace and the heightened unreality — one of the nearest reads in the catalogue.

These are Happy People: A Year in the Taiga’s neighbours — where are yours?

Rate five posters and the same twelve axes read you — then tonight’s pick comes from your own centre of taste.

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