As a film noob, this is the first time I have heard of Anette Varda, and it is also the first time I have seen her work.
Through Teacher Dai’s introduction, I learned that Varda is known as the mother of the new wave of French films. He has been engaged in the film industry with various identities throughout his life. In the last ten years of his life, he has won tribute awards from major film festivals. Until her death in 2019, Varda, who was over ninety years old, did not stop her creation and career.
When I first watched the film list of the course "Dai Jinhua Film Class", I was surprised that there was still a documentary. After watching the film, I was even more puzzled that the relationship between this film and the subject of this course "gender and gaze" did not seem to be too great.
"The Gleaner" has also been translated as "Me and the Gleaner", and the more straightforward translation name should be "The Scavengers and the Female Scavengers." Varda took Miller's famous oil painting "The Gleaner" as a starting point, and sensitively captured that the scavenging behavior that was once basically monopolized by women has now become a behavior that both men and women join. This film visually shows the huge waste of resources caused by consumerism and commercial development at the end of the 20th century.
The first potato cultivation industry is impressive. Tons of potatoes are discarded, most of which are simply because they are unique in shape, or are too large/small. After the harvest is complete, the farmer allows scavengers around to pick up their discarded potatoes. Varda picked up a lot of heart-shaped potatoes here, and also had the photo on the poster.
Vineyard owners who can make wine have a completely different attitude towards scavengers. The ground was full of unwanted grapes, but the owner would rather watch them slowly decompose than allow scavengers to enter and take them away. The reason is of course to protect one's own property, but also to avoid encountering scavengers who do not follow the rules at the source.
The people in the film who are forced to scavengers let us see that the trash can in modern society is a huge treasure trove. People snapped up the bread that was baked that day, and at the same time threw those things that were close to the expiration date or just over the expiration date for one or two days into the trash. For scavengers, it is entirely possible to dig through the garbage every day and even match up with a hearty meal.
It suddenly occurred to me that the garbage sorting policy implemented today may not be friendly to scavengers. The intact food must be poured into the wet garbage bin together with the cold leftovers according to the regulations, and the possibility of eating again is lost.
Surprisingly, the ranks of scavengers are not all people who are old and incapacitated. A group of young people in their early twenties on the street are also scavengers, and they were even sent to court for violating the rules. But even so, they still think they are doing the right thing. What is the reason for this group of people to live on the streets, will they continue to live this way in the future? I thought of a boy in "Seven Years of Life" who lived on social assistance when he was in his 30s.
Of course, there are still many scavengers under Varda’s lens who are not forced by life. Some people turn out art from the garbage dump, some just pick up waste out of hobbies, and some pick up waste voluntarily out of environmental considerations. .
Compared with the film itself, the life of Varda described by Teacher Dai is more admirable. She has been doing what she loves all her life, and there is no such thing as "retirement." Many female role models I have met this year seem to be like this. For example, the narrator of this course, Mr. Dai, the prototype of the characters in human and ghost love, Henan Bangzi master Pei Yanling, and Mr. Jin Xing mentioned that he has hosted the best Wuzhen Art Festival Tian Qinxin. Teacher, and Wang Yaping, who became the first female astronaut in China.
Perhaps this is the reason why Teacher Dai chose this work as the last lesson. It is not the work itself, but the director Varda himself which is more in line with the subject of the course.
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