Les glaneurs et la glaneuse (2000)

Les glaneurs et la glaneuse was certainly a very different film from Cleo from 5 to 9, Agnès Varda's most famous film. I didn't know what to expect. For some reason, I didn't think I were to see a very political, yet simple, documentary about poverty and waste. The film is shot with a digital camera. The visual style of the film is thus very simple. That is no shortcoming. Varda's film could almost be called an essay-documentary, in how it explores its theme by means of association and reliance upon the viewer's own ability of reflection. Varda explores "gleaning"; a variation of activities revolving around picking up stuff discarded by others, be it fruit, vegetables, broken TV:s or food in garbage bins. Varda talks to gleaners and supervisors, shop owners and activists. Varda's voice-over provides the film with structure, at times reflective and interesting, but during some moments too obtrusive, and too self-occupied (a very French motif: towards-death and quasi-phenomenology: "My project is to film with one hand my other hand). The strenght of the film is how soberly it deals with materiality. Varda does not look down on the gleaners, nor does she make any grand claims about "survival" nor "consumerism". She quietly observes day-to-day variations of eating, living and consuming, along with the joys and miseries of rummaging and scavenging.