{"id":1079,"date":"2017-09-18T11:08:30","date_gmt":"2017-09-18T11:08:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ellaraidel.com\/?p=1079"},"modified":"2026-07-23T11:55:01","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T11:55:01","slug":"double-happiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ellaraidel.com\/?p=1079","title":{"rendered":"Double Happiness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Double Happiness, 74 Min., 2014, DCP, (Subtitles available: german, english, chinese)<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/doublehappiness.at\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">www.doublehappiness.at<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8211;&gt; visit also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Double-Happiness-509137092555617\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">facebook<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"embed-vimeo\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/103542160\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>What happens when an Austrian Alpine village acquires a Chinese twin\u2014complete with its church tower, market square, cobblestones, and mountain scenery?<\/p>\n<p>Double Happiness takes its title from the Chinese character \u56cd, a traditional symbol of marital union and shared joy. Here, the \u201chappy couple\u201d is formed by two Hallstatts: the historic Austrian village and its full-scale architectural double, built as a luxury real-estate development near Shenzhen. Their unlikely marriage produces a playful reflection on copying and creativity, authenticity and performance, and the dreams that architecture is asked to fulfill.<br \/>\nMoving between the two Hallstatts, Ella Raidel combines exquisitely composed documentary images with interviews, miniature models, staged encounters, television fragments, and karaoke-like musical interludes. A young Chinese woman in a dirndl sings to the moon; architects contemplate the future of Chinese cities; and an idealized European past reappears as a newly constructed Chinese reality.<br \/>\nRather than treating the replica as merely \u201cfake,\u201d the film asks a more intriguing question: can a copy produce its own meanings, memories, and desires? At once humorous, intellectually provocative, and visually seductive, Double Happiness reveals globalization as a hall of mirrors in which China and Europe encounter not only each other, but also their own fantasies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Among the Chinese \u201cdouble happiness\u201d refers to the happiness that\u2019s increased twofold when a couple decides to spend the rest of their lives together. Ella Raidel chose this beautiful and optimistic concept as the title of her first full-length documentary. But, calling it a documentary possibly isn\u2019t fitting, and it\u2019s certainly not like the conventional kind of report on globalization. On the contrary, this is an extremely pointed film essay made with a great deal of sensitivity and a fine touch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1388,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/ellaraidel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/format_dh_moped.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4JnJ4-hp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ellaraidel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ellaraidel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ellaraidel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ellaraidel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ellaraidel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1079"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/ellaraidel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2695,"href":"https:\/\/ellaraidel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1079\/revisions\/2695"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ellaraidel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ellaraidel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ellaraidel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ellaraidel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}