Pleasure and happiness are two often interchangeable terms. Pleasure emerges spontaneously in an instant because of external stimuli. Happiness, on the other hand, comes due to intense and prolonged duration of personal connection. Still, the two come from desire, which is insatiable anyway. This means that both pleasure and happiness have to come from demanding, continuous, yet unappeasable external drives.
Can one materialize a personal image and then assembly and manifest it into a cultural construct in the name of collective happiness?
The superstructure, let’s say the State, constructs simplified methods to gauge and delineate the desire of its people—their happiness. The State is there to guarantee the living of its citizens that way. No one knows whether it eventually results in self-identitiy talking about origin or a matter of boundaries that compartmentalize human on the basis of superficial paramaters.
Those variables are at play in the clainms of four filmmakers of France—their country of origin. Michel Toseca, in To The Four Winds (2018), exposes the problematic system that borders humanity on the basis of arbitary geographical lines. There is also Merie Losier, who speaks of one’s search of validation and inclusion in Cassandro, The Exotico! (2018).
France is introduced as a nation in Laetitia Carton’s Le Grand Bal (2018). In the subject of her choosing, Carton shows her favoritism of culture, another dimension of happiness to French people. Culture is yet a set of non-exhaustive issues that originated not only to race, but also the stubbornness of humans themselves..
Far across the ocean, Mickoel Andrianaly invites the audience to unveil the attitude of the citizens of Madagascar, a former French colony, in pursuing happiness. Interestingly, the filmmaker of Nofinofy (2019) illustrates France through the memories of a barber. His recollection of France and vision for Madagascar are gradually unwrapped. Everything comes together in the barbershop.
The four films are screened on Le Mois du Documentaire with Pursuit of Happiness as the topic. Le Mois du Documentaire is essentially a celebration of documentary films observed in France and France institutes of culture worldwide every November. In Yogyakarta, this event is annually celebrated as a collaborative project between Festival Film Dokumenter (FFD) and Institut Français d’Indonésie (IFI) Yogyakarta since 2016.
Le Mois du Documentaire was already held on November 11th-12th, 2019 at Auditorium IFI-LIP Yogyakarta. But, you can rewatch Le Grand Bal (2018) on December 4th, 2019 at 7.00 p.m. at Padepokan Seni Bagong Kussudiardja (PSBK).