March 8–15, 2001

movie shorts

The Gleaners and I

recommended

Agnès Varda’s documentary is a whimsical take on a serious subject. Her charismatic, self-reflexive narration binds together a story which links "gleaners," traditionally women who were allowed to take what remained after an agricultural harvest, to the modern-day homeless and poor, who scoop their meals out of dumpsters or harvest potatoes deemed unfit for commercial sale and dumped in the open air. Interwoven with a journey which features subjects planned and unplanned are Varda’s meditations on her own advancing age; with a digital video camera, she "gleans" material which, by her estimate, makes up a fifth of the film, using one hand to shoot the wrinkles in the other, or the gray roots of her hair. The result is a unique mixture, part protest doc, part autobiographical essay, consistently enthralling and wonderfully unpredictable.

—Sam Adams

(See Sam Adams’ interview with director Agnès Varda.)