Varda focuses her eye on gleaners: those who scour already-reaped fields for the odd potato or turnip. Her investigation leads from forgotten corners of the French countryside to off-hours at the green markets of Paris, following those who insist on finding a use for that which society has cast off, whether out of necessity or activism.
One doesn't normally use the word "fun" and documentary in the same sentence, but Varga has such a unique personality and style that her films are actually fun. The Gleaners and I may be the most fun and yet, Varga delivers the political message with Vaseline. At the same time, we get an education on found art.
The Gleaners and I is a documentary about gleaning as both a physical and metaphysical activity. Director Agnès Varda is herself a meta-gleaner; shes a gleaner of gleaners the same way that Jesus was a fisher of men.
The film is a confluence of the practical and the artistic. Many of the people in the movie glean to eat (their children sing a revealing ditty: Monday, potatoes/Tuesday, potatoes/Wednesday, potatoes again/Thursday, potatoes/Friday, potatoes/Saturday, potatoes again/Sunday, potatoes au gratin). For others is a chosen lifestyle, or a hipster hobby.
And for Varda, it is an aesthetic endeavor; I'm not poor, I have enough to eat, she said in an interview, pointing to another kind of gleaning, which is artistic gleaning. You p...
