Les glaneurs et la glaneuse

The documentary “Les glaneurs et la glaneuse” is my favourite because shows an alternative way of life. The documentary shows the life of different people who collect things in the crops, the streets or the garbage. I saw it for the first time two years ago. It’s directed by the french documentalist Agnes Varda. It was released in 2000. Varda is the narrator of the documentary.

The title of the documentary comes from a picture called Des glaneuses (The Gleaners) made for the french painter Jean-François Millet in 1857.  The documentary starts showing the picture and explaining the ancient tradition of glean. When the harvest is done there is a law who allow the gleaners to pick up the leftovers of the harvest. Varda goes to a rural region of France and talks with people who still are following this tradition. In this group of people there are poor people, like gypsies and people with a good economic situation, in this case a restorant owner who picks up vegetables for free to prepare his dishes.

In the second part Varda goes to the city, there are urban gleaners too. The documentalist meets people who survive with the food that found in  trash cans, people who make sculptures with garbage, and tells the story of a teacher who teach french to the immigrants and eat vegetables that find in the streets of Paris.

The documentary won several awards: Best Documentary in the Boston Society of Film Critics Awards, Best Documentary in the Chicago International Film Festival, best documentary in European Film Award and many others.

Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse from WDROTV on Vimeo.