Synopsis
All over France, Agnès Varda has met gleaners, reclaimers, collectors and finders. By necessity, chance or choice, they are in contact with the remains of others. Their universe is surprising. Potatoes, apples and other discarded foods, objects without masters and clocks without hands, this is the gleaning of our time. But Varda is also the gleaner of the title and her documentary is subjective. Curiosity has no age. The filming is also gleaning.
A word from Tënk
Totally embracing the cinematographic gesture, notably through the sensitive exploration of a then new technology (MiniDV camera), Agnès Varda shows a reality through the prism of her unique gaze. Although she partly directs her camera on her old age, this film testifies to the eternal youth of a free creator, capable of a wonder filled with a social and political charge. With enormous respect and a touching humanity, she elaborates real exchanges with the people she meets, without masking the inequalities that separate them. The Gleaners & I is one of those works that we would so much like to be able to return to the wonder of our first viewing, but whose wonder cannot seem to be exhausted when we return to it punctually, with repeated pleasure.
Hubert Sabino-Brunette
Teacher and programmer
