The Gleaners and I

Great review of "The Gleaners and I" by Agnes Varda 2000:

([email protected])
Santa Fe, NM
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0247380

Date: 1 May 2001
Summary: another thought-provoking, humanistic beauty from Agnes Varda

You may remember director Agnes Varda from her 1986 film, VAGABOND. [** I
actually remeber her for my favorite "The Kungfu Master or the french
title "Le Petit Amour" -muse**] But over the last five decades, the
`grandmother of French New Wave' has completed 29 other works, most
showing her affection, bemusement, outrage, and wide-ranging curiosity for
humanity.

Varda's most recent effort-the first filmed with a digital
videocamera-focuses on gleaners, those who gather the spoils left after a
harvest, as well as those who mine the trash. Some completely exist on the
leavings; others turn them into art, exercise their ethics, or simply have
fun. The director likens gleaning to her own profession-that of collecting
images, stories, fragments of sound, light, and color.

In this hybrid of documentary and reflection, Varda raises a number of
philosophical questions. Has the bottom line replaced our concern with
others' well-being, even on the most essential level of food? What happens
to those who opt out of our consumerist society? And even, What
constitutes–or reconstitutes–art?

Along this road trip, she interviews plenty of French characters. We meet
a man who has survived almost completely on trash for 15 years. Though he
has a job and other trappings, for him it is `a matter of ethics.'
Another, who holds a master's degree in biology, sells newspapers and
lives in a homeless shelter, scavenges food from market, and spends his
nights teaching African immigrants to read and write.

Varda is an old hippie, and her sympathies clearly lie with such
characters who choose to live off the grid. She takes our frenetically
consuming society to task and suggests that learning how to live more
simply is vital to our survival.

At times we can almost visualize her clucking and wagging her finger-a tad
heavy-handedly advancing her agenda. However, the sheer waste of 25 tons
of food at a clip is legitimately something to cluck about. And it is her
very willingness to make direct statements and NOT sit on the fence that
Varda fans most enjoy, knowing that her indignation is deeply rooted in
her love of humanity.

The director interjects her playful humor as well-though it's subtle,
French humor that differs widely from that of, say, Tom Green. Take the
judge in full robes who stands in a cabbage field citing the legality of
gleaning chapter and verse.

Quirky and exuberant, Varda, 72, is at an age where she's more concerned
with having fun with her craft than impressing anyone. With her handheld
digital toy, she pans around her house and pauses to appreciate a patch of
ceiling mold. When she later forgets to turn off her camera, she films
`the dance of the lens cap.'

One of the picture's undercurrents is the cycle of life-growth, harvest,
decay. She often films her wrinkled hands and speaks directly about her
aging process, suggesting that her own mortality is much on her mind. The
gleaners pluck the fruits before their decay, as Varda lives life to the
fullest, defying the inevitability of death. Toward the movie's end, she
salvages a Lucite clock with no hands. As she films her face passing
behind it, she notes, `A clock with no hands is my kind of thing.'

If you'd be the first to grab a heart-shaped potato from the harvest, or
make a pile of discarded dolls into a totem pole, THE GLEANERS is probably
your kind of thing.



–end