The Gleaners and I

Here and there in France. Agnès has come across gleaners, foragers, rummagers and scavengers. Through necessity, purely by chance or out of choice these people pick up left-over items discarded by others. Their world is a surprising one, but a far cry from the world of yesterday’s gleaners, peasant women who rummaged for bits of wheat left after the harvest. Potatoes, apples, discared foodstuffs, things without owners, clocks without hands are the fare of today’s gleaners. As for Agnès, she is the gleaner of the title of this subjective documentary. There’s no age limit to curiosity. Filming itself is gleaning.