This year’s Sundance Film Festival introduced the audience to a fascinating new documentary titled Agent of Happiness. Directed by Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó, this project took a closer look at the happiness levels of the citizens of Bhutan. Bhutan is a landlocked South Asian country where the majority of the population are followers of Buddhism. Interestingly, their government has a department called the Ministry of Gross National Happiness.
The responsibility of the Ministry of Gross National Happiness is to measure the collective happiness and well-being of the citizens of Bhutan. Furthermore, people who work for this department are known as Happiness Agents. In Agent of Happiness, happiness agents Amar and Gunaraj are showcased going door-to-door to measure people’s happiness levels. While Gunaraj is a serious family man, his friend Amar is a hopeless romantic who dreams of getting married someday. The duo collects data for the Happiness Survey to create 5-year-happiness plans to increase the Happiness Index of the society.
According to Catapult Film Funds, the synopsis of Agent of Happiness reads, “Amar and Gunaraj are not only close friends but also Happiness Agents. They work together for the Happiness Ministry of Bhutan traveling door to door and measuring people’s happiness level. While searching for their own among the remote Himalayan mountains.”
It further reads, “On their mission, they encounter various people chasing their dreams. This satirical road movie through a mosaic of different stories discovers the real desires of a society. Behind a national identity created by the Happiness Ministry of Bhutan, a closed country for centuries.”
Agent of Happiness: How does Bhutan measure gross national happiness?
The modern introduction of national happiness began in the 1970s when then-King Jigme Singye Wangchuck famously stated, “Gross national happiness is more important than gross domestic product.” However, Bhutan officially began measuring the happiness of its citizens in 2008.
According to NPR, Happiness Agents ask the citizens questions that cover nine domains deemed relevant to happiness. These domains include psychological well-being, health, education, community vitality, living standards, and good governance. However, in the end, the question arises, it it even possible to calculate something like human happiness?
Many researchers believe it is possible. According to a social psychologist at the University of British Columbia named Elizabeth Dunn, happiness researchers have been widely successful. She stated, “The study of happiness has made major strides over the past 40 years or so. Happiness researchers have actually been really successful in taking these seemingly ineffable concepts and turning them into metrics that we can analyze.”
Furthermore, Michael Givel stated that Bhutan introduced this concept when globalization seemed like a risk to the long-isolated country’s culture and heritage. Givel is a comparative political scientist at the University of Oklahoma who has done research in Bhutan. He said, ” The rulers of Bhutan recognized that the country needed to balance its traditional Buddhist values with modern, secular issues, like health care and living wages.”
Agent of Happiness’ directors Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó are veterans in the art of creating documentaries. Furthermore, this project was produced by Noémi Veronika Szakonyi.
