Accompanying the original 2000 documentary on this DVD is the 2002 "sequel", "The Gleaners and I: Two Years Later", nearly as good but perhaps a little more repetitive - by the very nature of covering much of the same ground as Varda revisits many of those she documented in the first film. When she catches up to Alain, the Parisian teacher and newspaper seller, he tells her that she showed herself too much in the earlier film, that it wasn't very interesting to him. Can you imagine most directors allowing such a bit? But Varda's modesty wins out and she doesn't focus nearly as much on herself here, until the very end when she movingly tells the story of how she was made aware of parallels between "Gleaners" and "Jacquot", her film on her late husband Jacques Demy. Film-making is a chance operation, even to the filmmakers sometimes.
Taken together these are among the finest essay/documentaries I've seen and in their combination of personal anecdote, politics, true-life stories and analysis of the human condition there aren't many other films like them, or filmmakers working on this level. Most highly recommended to fans of Kiarostami, Makhmalbaf, Marker, Herzog - or anyone interested in life on the margins and the Wasteful Century.
I've separately reviewed "The Gleaners and I" at greater length.
Taken together these are among the finest essay/documentaries I've seen and in their combination of personal anecdote, politics, true-life stories and analysis of the human condition there aren't many other films like them, or filmmakers working on this level. Most highly recommended to fans of Kiarostami, Makhmalbaf, Marker, Herzog - or anyone interested in life on the margins and the Wasteful Century.
I've separately reviewed "The Gleaners and I" at greater length.