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  Specs
  • Full Frame
  Languages
  • French: Dolby Digital Stereo
  Subtitles
    English
  Extras
  • 5 Teaser trailer
  • Bonus feature film

The Gleaners and I

Madman Cinema/AV Channel . R4 . COLOR . 74 mins . G . PAL

  Feature
Contract

Agnès Varda’s The Gleaners and I, or Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse, is a documentary that pushes the boundaries of metaphorical and symbolic self-discovering filmmaking to new and rather painful heights. This reviewer was just unable to connect with this piece of rambling, disjointed, experimental, self-indulgent, symbolically bizarre and ultimately loopy documentary. Parts of the piece do make you sit there and think, yet for a 74 minute duration you need more than just ‘parts’ to make it ultimately rewarding.

This film feels as if Varda is taking us on her own mental journey of self-discovery with her pointing out what she likes about heart-shaped potatoes, weird self-portraits and trying to catch trucks in her hands. It’s just warped. This is the kind of material that one may write in a diary, or ponder about, but it feels as if we’ve gatecrashed this 72-year-old’s retirement road trip.

Gleaning is the act of picking at the already-harvested fields for the leftover produce that machinery has been unable to collect. Years ago, before machinery, gleaning was the only way to harvest the produce, yet now, the gleaners are often homeless, unemployed or simply cheap. Varda fleets from the potato gleaning to grapes to fruit to psychoanalysis (yeah, figures) to gleaning after the markets in Paris. She is able to illustrate that gleaning is no longer restricted to the fields and that it is happening in our streets as well, featuring interviews with gleaners, farmers and teachers. The message she produces is rather meaningful, however the obscure (or ludicrous) nature of her filmmaking ‘journey’ is rather detrimental to the entire experience, creating a mixed bag of warped imagery, personal likes and a splash of realism. This really isn’t for everyone, as this review shows, however particular (and patient) audiences may find this one more suitable to their needs.

  Video
Contract

The video, shot on a hand-held DV camcorder, scrubs up well. Disappointingly though, Varda does not use the anamorphic setting on the camcorder, which would have been able to create a more theatrical mood and expansive framing, but oh well. So the video is presented in a 1.33:1 full-framed aspect, lacking anamorphic enhancement. Things look pretty much like what you would expect from your home movies, with lusciously saturated colours, harsh definition and reasonable shadow detail, not to mention that glazed look that only a DV camcorder can give. These aren’t necessarily bad things, as this transfer (well, technically at least) is easy to watch, but just trademark features of the medium. The biggest technical gripe is with the rather large number of compression artefacts, most probably due to the restricting nature of the DV format rather than the transfer’s compressionist. These occur in the expected places of highly busy shots, yet overall don’t leave too much of a nasty impression on the audience’s eye.

The subtitles, available in English only, are a little too small, creating this hazy yellow block of text along the bottom of the screen, often a little hard to read. The speed of the French language doesn’t help either, as a few lines flick past before you can even read the second word. Scarily for those of us not fluent in French, at a few places throughout the film the subtitles fail to appear, leaving us looking at some imagery while listening to, more often than not, Varda babble on. Maybe the lack of subtitling may have been beneficial for the aforementioned weird bits as I know I’d sleep better not knowing what she was on about.

  Audio
Contract

A sole Dolby Digital 2.0 track is presented to us with the language option of French, even though, technically speaking, the DVD player refers to this track as English. But anyway, does that really matter?

Dialogue is audible throughout the whole film, in synch consistently. As for the accuracy of the subtitles, you’ll need to ask someone else as this guy’s French is rather limited. Well, nearly non-existent. Stereo separation is too pretty much non-existent, with the film focusing on the dialogue rather than discrete effects. The music is, well, hmm. Well, that’s the scary bit. Another sign that she is in fact on some serious mind-altering substance is the inclusion of French rap music that is just, well, (c)rap. The remainder of the score consists of some jerky instrumentals that are fitting for the message of the film, yet don’t hold the demand for a CD soundtrack.

  Extras
Contract

Ah, you’ve just watch 74 minutes of Varda’s journey and are about to explore the extra features where you find another 60 minutes – Varda’s journey continued... two years later. This bonus feature film, The Gleaners and I: Two Years Later or Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse: Deux Ans Après, gives Varda the chance to show us the feedback that she had received from the first film, taking us on a journey to visit these letter-writers as well as revisiting some of the previous subjects such as Salomon, Alain and Claude. Like The Gleaners and I, this film feels like a 60 minute presentation by someone with too much time on their hands. The contents of this are like someone’s inner thoughts on a subject, or what you could read in a diary, not seen on celluloid (well DV rather). This reviewer found this second film to be quite simply self-obsessive and unnecessary. The transfer is equally as special as that belonging to the feature film, with the same dreamlike appearance and simple, yet functional, audio.

Completing the extra features is the usual collection of Madman Propaganda in the form of trailers for the films Calle 54 (1:13), Amandla (1:39), Standing in the Shadows of Motown (2:04), Swing (1:32) and Russian Ark (2:10).

  Overall  
Contract

This reviewer isn’t really that much of a documentary person unless he actually has a passion for the subject. He is, at least, willing to give everything a go. The Gleaners and I just didn’t hit the spot, resulting in a rather tedious and self-indulgent journey by Varda who is trying to be metaphorical yet feels so out of place for the subject matter. Maybe it’s just me, as the film has won awards all over the world, but it just flows like a river through a delta with just as much ambition, misdirection and wandering annoyance that makes even a 74 minute duration seem quite a bit longer. The transfer is neat, yet nothing too stunning, with a follow-up film granted to us as an extra feature, extending the 74 minutes to over two hours. See, much longer than you think.


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      And I quote...
    "...it feels as if we’ve gatecrashed this 72-year-old’s retirement road trip..."
    - Martin Friedel
      Review Equipment
    • DVD Player:
          Sony DVP-NS530
    • TV:
          Sharp SX76NF8 76cm Widescreen
    • Receiver:
          Sony HT-SL5
    • Speakers:
          Sony SS-MSP2
    • Centre Speaker:
          Sony SS-CNP2
    • Surrounds:
          Sony SS-MSP2
    • Subwoofer:
          Sony SA-WMSP3
    • Audio Cables:
          Standard Optical
    • Video Cables:
          standard s-video
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