ALTERNATIVE LIVES AND A PERSONAL HISTORY : "THE GLEANERS AND I"

Those of you who are interested in French New Wave cinema (and yes, I realize there are not many of us out there) will recognize the name of Agnes Varda as one of the forerunners of the movement, and a very original artist. Apart from being one of the only female directors in the movement, Varda has a very particular outlook on things, an outlook that I find has become more and more openly expressed in her later works. Personally I enjoy her later films better. Semi-autobiographical documentaries in style, most of them are recorded accounts of a perspective on life and everyday things that you would never capture without taking the trouble to step into Varda’s shoes. The gleaners and I is just one such documentary. Basically, the gleaners and I is a documentary about “gleaning”. Now if you are as lost as I initially was as to the meaning of this, let me explain it to you before we progress any further. Usually after farmers gather their crops there are some left in the fields, for whatever reason. The produce may not have been selected because it is overly ripe, not the right size, sheer negligence… Or alternately, a lot of large companies, after sorting through vegetables or fruits in factories, discard a lot of the produce for reasons such as shape and size. This discarded produce is usually dumped back into the fields. It is people’s legal right (as Varda demonstrates with the aid of lawyers in case there are any cynics out there) to come and take this produce free of charge. The practice varies slightly from place to place and region to region and of course like everything it has changed a good deal over time. Varda examines gleaning and its history in the countryside first, then moves on to the city, examining topics as varied as dumpster diving and the homeless, Varda sets about tracking down the gleaners of the big cities and uncovers a whole host of various life stories in the process. I know what you’re thinking. I know because I initially thought it too. This had the potential to be fascinating, but it also had the potential to be categorically deadly. There was an inherent risk to sitting down and watching it. I, sadly (or in fact happily as it turned out) had no choice. It was obligatory viewing for a module at university. I could try and briefly chronicle all the life stories Varda shows us in the documentary, but even that would not capture its flavor. I could tell you how the rambling journey of the camera crew is interspersed with Varda’s musings on life, old age and even her own mortality. But that would not capture Varda’s spirit. You really have to sit down and watch this. You will learn, you will laugh and you will think about things that never occurred to you before. A true little gem if there ever was one.