The Gleaners And I

Gleaners are the people who snap up unconsidered trifles: the ugly potatoes left behind after the harvest, the discarded fruit and veg of a market. They are also artists. Varda uses Millet's painting of women in a wheat field, as well as modern-day gleaners in thestreets of Paris, to produce her own hybrid: part-documentary, part-artwork, part humorous meditation on ageing (she's in her 70's as she makes the film). 'Varda tints every frame of The Gleaners and I with a kind of joyous mournfulness: When you realize life is slipping by you, you want to hold on to every scrap.' (Stephanie Zacharek, salon.com)