Jean Francois Millet, the French painter of the Barbizon school, seems to have been the inspiration for Agnes Varda's interesting documentary "Les glaneurs et la glaneuse". In fact, Ms. Varda makes it a point to take us along to the French countryside where Millet got the inspiration for his masterpiece "Les Glaneurs". Like in his other paintings, Millet comments about the peasantry working the fields in most of his canvases. One can see the poverty in his subjects as they struggle to gather crops for their employers.

Ms. Varda takes a humanistic approach to another type of activity in which she bases her story. In fact, the people one sees in the film are perhaps the descendants of the gleaners of Millet's time, except they are bringing whatever is left behind once the machinery takes care of gathering the best of each crop, leaving the rest to rot in the fields.

Agnes Varda takes a trip through her native France to show us the inequality of a system that produces such excesses that a part of it has to be dumped because it doesn't meet standards. On the one hand, there is such abundance, and on the other, one sees how some of the poor people showcased in the documentary can't afford to buy the basics and must resort to take it on their own to get whatever has been left in order to survive.

With this documentary, Agnes Varda shows an uncanny understanding to the problems most of these people are facing.

Some parts of "The Gleaners & I" is loved. However, had the movie been entitled "The Gleaners" and stuck to that theme, it would have been much better. Still, the gleaners aspect of the film is quite compelling.

The documentarian and widow of Jacques Demy ("The Umbrellas of Cherbourg"),Agnès Varda, made this film on videotape using what looks like a home video camera. This isn't necessarily a complaint-- especially since much of the theme of this film is making use of discarded items--and you usually don't discard state of the art cameras and other film equipment. The film begins by showing the famous Millet painting "The Gleaners" at the d'Orsay Museum in Paris and then showing how gleaning like they did in the old days is alive and well. Let me explain a bit. In the old days (such as in the book of Ruth in the Bible),poor folks were allowed to pick through the fields once the crops were harvested. Anything they wanted to take (the castoffs) they were allowed to take. Just like this today people in France have been able to take advantage of this in a variety of settings. Seeing tons of unwanted potatoes which were going to simply rot being picked by folks for useful potatoes (over or under-sized ones) made me quite happy since it avoids waste. Other ways to avoid waste are shown such as dumpster divers, artists who use garbage and people who pick through restaurant and grocer garbage piles all reminds us how wasteful modern society is and the film has a great point to make.

Unfortunately, too often the filmmaker loses focus--either by going off on tangents or by focusing the film too much on herself or her desire to be artsy (such as filming mildew spots in her own home). It was like Ms. Varda wasn't sure if the film should be about her or the pickers. Clearly it SHOULD have been all about the pickers. When she's focused on this, the film is like gold! When she doesn't, it becomes tedious and, dare I say, a bit self-indulgent. Interestingly, in her follow- up film where Varda revisits people two years later, one of her most important interviewees says exactly that when she asks him what he didn't like about the film...and then she has some middle-class lady come up to the guy (like a surrogate to the filmmaker) and argue with the guy about this!! She DID ask him about his opinion!!!

From director Agnès Varda (Cleo from 5 to 7),there are a few documentary films that feature in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, and this French one sounded like a very interesting one to look forward to. The definition of "gleaning" is to collect or gather left over crops after a harvest, but for the purposes of this film it is not crops that is seen picked up by people, it is other forms. In this film we see people in cities, towns, villages and in open spaces picking up food, such as fruit (apples, tomatoes),vegetables (potatoes, lettuce),bread, meat, near its sell by date packages, and much more. There are many forms of people who are seen gleaning in this form, such as homeless people, people in poverty, travellers, unemployed people, and some that just take advantage of the opportunity. There are also the occasional other forms of gleaning, such as using rubbish and old items and turning them into something else whether to be used again or for art, including pieces using recycled materials, and old paintings not put on show. Through the film we follow these various types of people doing what they can to survive and get by, director Varda has her participation in the situations seen, and there are interviews from the people who do it, and psychologists who explain the reasons. This is a very insightful film that shows the things people will do to eat and survive, and it is really informative about what you can do with these foods and materials that most people would think should be left alone, a great documentary. Very good!