Even though we've known it for a long time, TV5 still commissioned Hugo Latulippe to demonstrate it.
The filmmaker from Quebec therefore went in search of happiness to all corners of the planet. Exploring the globe is a habit Latulippe picked up on the now-famous Radio Canada show La Course Destination Monde. Since then, the globetrotter has made tracks and films about it. He even won a lot of prizes and trophies with What Remains of Us, a documentary that he shot in Tibet with François Prévost without the knowledge of the Chinese police.
Latulippe didn't take any big risks for the 10-part series The Gross Interior Happiness Project, which airs on TV5 on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. from January 30th. He filmed in 14 mostly calm countries, with Iceland proving to be the most turbulent country due to recent volcanic eruptions.
It has already been a century since most of our politicians proclaimed that the Gross Domestic Product (the famous GDP) contributes to the happiness of citizens, which is far from the opinion of the Dalai Lama, the most recent pope, Monk Matthieu Ricard (whom we see in the series) and dozens of other good souls that we still find on Earth and in the series.
WHERE IS HAPPINESS?
Latulippe interviews 69 personalities, including Melk Wiking, founder of the Institute for Research on Happiness. They all claim that we need to stop measuring happiness by GDP. Even Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante joins them to show that happiness is the only true indicator of a country's prosperity.
Based on the latest World Happiness Report, Latulippe's series places the United States as just the 15th happiest country, while our neighbor is well ahead in GDP. China, which ranks second in GDP, ranks 64th in happiness and India ranks 126th, while ranking fifth in GDP.
TV5 couldn't have found a better time to air the series. Yesterday, the first day of the Davos Economic Forum, Oxfam announced that the wealth of the world's five richest men (including Bernard Arnault, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos) increased by 114% to $869 billion over the last four years. Meanwhile, five billion other people have become poorer, including probably you and me. Will the “Gross Inner Happiness” project succeed in convincing us that wealth means happiness?
DOC MAILLOUX, EXTREME PSYCHIATRIST!
PHOTO ANDREANNE LEMIRE
He died last Friday, this psychiatrist who was rejected seven times from the College of Physicians, who angered thousands of Quebecers with his controversial statements on radio and television, who loved boxing and “his” cheese (Le Chevalier Mailloux), who looked at Denise Bombardier as the best writer in Quebec and the St-Tite Western Festival as the largest cultural event that hated the CPE, the DPJ, the crucifix of the Trois-Rivières courthouse and the feminists who believed that the worst war was between men and women, etc. etc. and who supported Donald Trump!
But I really liked this extreme psychiatrist who I did the entire first season of Loft Story on TQS with and who we seem to have concluded that his eccentricities and excesses did more good than harm.