Varda's Gleaning Beauty

With The Gleaners and I, Agnes Varda makes a documentary that accomplishes what documentaries, in my opinion, are set out to accomplish: the conveyance of a filmmaker’s message not only through the content and context of the film but intrinsically through the modes of filmic production employed. It is not only through the dominant narrative of The Gleaners and I that Varda illustrates her points of view, but it is also the way Varda’s constructs her film through editing, sound, and mis-en-scene. Further, the use of her own presence throughout the film, an insertion of herself into the film’s core, contributes to a much more nuanced application of the theoretical framework upon which the film and Varda’s message exist. That theoretical framework Varda leans on for her film speaks on issues heavily laden with political, social, and economic ramifications. Her topical focus on “gleaning” is seeped with deeper tones that impact not only individual lived experiences but also much broader communities, particularly taking note of the ways communities interact with each other and their environments.

Varda begins the films by defining “gleaning” from a traditional perspective: “to clean after a harvest.” By first settling into this framework, Varda begins her story and message very much so by contexualizing how the traditional forms of gleaning - picking the harvest over for the crop remnants that have been deemed worthless or useless - were practiced in the past, as well as how those modes of gleaning are still used in the present. Yet, beyond Varda’s interpretation of gleaning in the fields - particularly, the potato fields and vineyards - she also describes gleaning through urban environments. She uses the streets of France to illustrate a gleaning that is placed in direct conversation with the policing of urban streets and bodies, showcasing the narratives of gleaners after the closing of markets and of gleaners that also glean for old appliances and the trash that is transformed into art. Further, the film’s narrative journey is also one of gleaning, an exercise in self-reflexivity. Varda picks through the stories and narratives that have been deemed socially unworthy and, at times, illegal in order to construct the film’s content. Throughout the film’s shooting, she travels to locations of gleaning and allows the individuals there to determine her next steps, very much akin to the physical act.

In all of these narratives, Varda finds the beauty in what has been tossed away. She finds heart-shaped potatoes and finds artists that create pieces out of their gleaning findings. Yet, what is most notable is Varda’s overall perspective on the way we differentiate waste from non-waste. She ties our culture and society to mass consumerism, consumption, and the ever greater production of articles deemed as waste. Digging even deeper into her views on waste and value, Varda also films herself as a means to critique what of her own feminized body is seen as “valuable,” drawing links to the genderized standards of beauty. She focuses on her own aging hands, tracing them with her camera, and marvels in their extraordinary capabilities to not only exemplify beauty but also to communicate where they have been and what they have felt. Indeed, Varda’s message is clear. And, indeed, her hands (and holistic self) are beautiful.

For the moment suspending the knowledge that Dove has predominantly used their “natural beauty” campaigns not as a reflection of ideology but rather as strategic marketing ploys, here is an ad for their “Pro-Age” campaign. In its hypocrisy, it makes me cringe that I actually feel this is a really great advertisement that showcases some beautiful older women (particularly, women of color, as well). Interesting tidbit... the commercial was banned from the United States for showing “too much skin.” If THAT isn’t something to think about, especially in reference to what is deemed “just enough skin” (aka. *young* women with just as little clothing on, most often in much more provocative (ie. tasteless) poses), I’m not sure what is.

-Kenny Gong