Happiness is...

By: Mugino

…ephemeral and illusory. Happiness is sometimes difficult (if not impossible) to have yet absurdly easy to lose. Those who don’t appreciate its presence when it is there are the ones who mourn its loss the most. Those who accept its transitory nature and see the immensity of small joys are in communion with the gods.

Films about happiness aren’t necessarily happy films. Tragedies can teach us how not to be unhappy or at least stop being unhappy about not being happy.

For me, the following films are meditations on happiness, distilled from the whole film or sometimes from a detail as small as a fleeting look on an actor’s face reflecting the universal yearning for everlasting happiness.

More titles to come…

• 01
  After Life
  Hirokazu Kore-eda
• 02
  Happiness
  Todd Solondz
• 03
  American Splendor
  Shari Springer Berman
• 04
  American Beauty
  Sam Mendes
• 05
  A Christmas Story
  Bob Clark
• 06
  Into the Wild
  Sean Penn
• 07
  Happy-Go-Lucky
  Mike Leigh
• 08
  The Rapture
  Michael Tolkin
• 09
  Secretary
  Steven Shainberg
• 10
  Far from Heaven
  Todd Haynes
• 11
  Last Exit to Brooklyn
  Uli Edel
• 12
  Synecdoche, New York
  Charlie Kaufman
• 13
  Thirteen Conversations About One Thing
  Jill Sprecher
• 14
  Scrooge
  Brian Desmond Hurst
• 15
  The Taste of Tea
  Katsuhito Ishii