The Gleaners and I
Varda focuses her eye on gleaners: those who scour already-reaped fields for the odd potato or turnip. Her investigation leads from forgotten corners of the French countryside to off-hours at the green markets of Paris, following those who insist on finding a use for that which society has cast off, whether out of necessity or activism.
Critics Sentiment
Varda introduces Millet's Les Glaneurs at the Orsay Museum
Varda turns the camera on her aging hand and calls it a horror
The film drops from 8.2 at the heart-shaped potatoes sequence to 6.5 when Varda turns the camera on herself, as reviewers split sharply between finding her self-reflection poignant and finding it self-indulgent.
Audience sentiment for The Gleaners and I is broadly warm and appreciative, with the film earning consistent praise for Varda's playful curiosity, humanistic portraits, and the elegance of her central gleaning-as-art metaphor. The curve dips in the film's middle third where Varda's self-reflexive passages divided viewers between those who found them charming and those who found them indulgent and unfocused. The final act recovers strongly as the film's most memorable human subjects and its closing philosophical synthesis bring the sentiment back to near its opening heights.
Crew
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