El hombre feliz
2007 · 15m · España
Directed by Lucina Gil
Genres: documentary, essay film
Tones: contemplative, tender, whimsical
Pepe Perea Perdigones, 74, from Alcorcón, has none of the things one is supposed to need to be happy — yet he is happy; an anthropologist from the University of Madison wonders how it is possible and where happiness resides.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
It's a sneaky little inversion—the academic comes looking for the formula and leaves empty-handed, which should feel like a cop-out but somehow doesn't; Gil knows exactly how to defang the premise without letting it collapse into saccharine nothingness.
A deceptively simple essay film that sits comfortably in the lineage of Varda and Wiseman—the formal restraint of the observational frame allows the contradiction between Pepe's circumstances and his contentment to do the philosophical work, and the editing knows when to hold and when to breathe.
The film's entire spell turns on one decision: to let Pepe's voice and presence dominate the frame without narration or framing device imposing meaning, which makes the anthropologist's bewilderment feel like our own, not a rhetorical setup.