Some parts of "The Gleaners & I" is loved. However, had the movie been entitled "The Gleaners" and stuck to that theme, it would have been much better. Still, the gleaners aspect of the film is quite compelling.
The documentarian and widow of Jacques Demy ("The Umbrellas of Cherbourg"), Agnès Varda, made this film on videotape using what looks like a home video camera. This isn't necessarily a complaint-- especially since much of the theme of this film is making use of discarded items--and you usually don't discard state of the art cameras and other film equipment. The film begins by showing the famous Millet painting "The Gleaners" at the d'Orsay Museum in Paris and then showing how gleaning like they did in the old days is alive and well. Let me explain a bit. In the old days (such as in the book of Ruth in the Bible), poor folks were allowed to pick through the fields once the crops were harvested. Anything they wanted to take (the castoffs) they were allowed to take. Just like this today people in France have been able to take advantage of this in a variety of settings. Seeing tons of unwanted potatoes which were going to simply rot being picked by folks for useful potatoes (over or under-sized ones) made me quite happy since it avoids waste. Other ways to avoid waste are shown such as dumpster divers, artists who use garbage and people who pick through restaurant and grocer garbage piles all reminds us how wasteful modern society is and the film has a great point to make.
Unfortunately, too often the filmmaker loses focus--either by going off on tangents or by focusing the film too much on herself or her desire to be artsy (such as filming mildew spots in her own home). It was like Ms. Varda wasn't sure if the film should be about her or the pickers. Clearly it SHOULD have been all about the pickers. When she's focused on this, the film is like gold! When she doesn't, it becomes tedious and, dare I say, a bit self-indulgent. Interestingly, in her follow- up film where Varda revisits people two years later, one of her most important interviewees says exactly that when she asks him what he didn't like about the film...and then she has some middle-class lady come up to the guy (like a surrogate to the filmmaker) and argue with the guy about this!! She DID ask him about his opinion!!!
The documentarian and widow of Jacques Demy ("The Umbrellas of Cherbourg"), Agnès Varda, made this film on videotape using what looks like a home video camera. This isn't necessarily a complaint-- especially since much of the theme of this film is making use of discarded items--and you usually don't discard state of the art cameras and other film equipment. The film begins by showing the famous Millet painting "The Gleaners" at the d'Orsay Museum in Paris and then showing how gleaning like they did in the old days is alive and well. Let me explain a bit. In the old days (such as in the book of Ruth in the Bible), poor folks were allowed to pick through the fields once the crops were harvested. Anything they wanted to take (the castoffs) they were allowed to take. Just like this today people in France have been able to take advantage of this in a variety of settings. Seeing tons of unwanted potatoes which were going to simply rot being picked by folks for useful potatoes (over or under-sized ones) made me quite happy since it avoids waste. Other ways to avoid waste are shown such as dumpster divers, artists who use garbage and people who pick through restaurant and grocer garbage piles all reminds us how wasteful modern society is and the film has a great point to make.
Unfortunately, too often the filmmaker loses focus--either by going off on tangents or by focusing the film too much on herself or her desire to be artsy (such as filming mildew spots in her own home). It was like Ms. Varda wasn't sure if the film should be about her or the pickers. Clearly it SHOULD have been all about the pickers. When she's focused on this, the film is like gold! When she doesn't, it becomes tedious and, dare I say, a bit self-indulgent. Interestingly, in her follow- up film where Varda revisits people two years later, one of her most important interviewees says exactly that when she asks him what he didn't like about the film...and then she has some middle-class lady come up to the guy (like a surrogate to the filmmaker) and argue with the guy about this!! She DID ask him about his opinion!!!