The Gleaners and I (2000)/The Gleaners and I: Two Years Later (2002)

I sometimes question the frequency Agnès Varda places herself in her documentaries. Luckily, she remains an appealing narrator and her insights about what she’s experiencing gives quite a bit of insight into her artistic process. The title here doesn’t shy away from the fact that she herself is a subject. Her focus in this film is on those in society who choose to glean food, and sometimes objects, for financial, ethical, or creative reasons. The subjects throughout are engaging and represent a wide range of French culture from traditional harvest gleaners to urban market gleaners to a Michelin chef to lawyers presenting the legalities of gleaning. It makes an interesting companion to Just Eat It in that they both shed a bright light on food waste. In both cases, there is discussion on the non-existent laws that wasters like to cite to justify their waste and the actual laws that encourage the resources to be shared.

The original film was so popular that Varda revisited a number of the original subjects, as well as meeting with some who were inspired by the first film, a couple of years later. The format and telling aren’t much different than the original film, but gleaning and those who glean remains a subject that is interesting enough to expand upon. Even though she made a slight attempt to pull herself away from being a subject herself, Agnès again brings herself into the art discussing her own experiences making and later promoting her film.