Profils paysans: l'approche (2001)
Directed by Raymond Depardon

Film Review

Profils paysans, chapitre 1 : l'approche is the first instalment in a trilogy of documentary films which offers the most intimate and revelatory portrait of a stratum of our society - the smallscale farmer - that is unseen by most of us and which is well on the road to extinction.  Together with the following two instalments - Profils paysans: le quotidien (2005) and La Vie moderne (2008) - it provides a sobering reflection on how far removed from the natural world most of us living in the developed world have become and how little connection we have with the primary industry on which our civilisation is founded, that of farming and agriculture.  This remarkable series of films was made by Raymond Depardon, a successful journalist who, over the past few decades, has come to be regarded as one of France's most important documentary filmmakers.

In this, his most personal film, Depardon visits a number of small farms in four areas of France (Lozère, Haute Saône, Ardèche and Haute-Loire) in the winter months and makes contact with a colourful ensemble of farmers who will allow him to film them as they go about their daily chores and who may, if pressed, talk about themselves, their work, and their concerns for the future.  The most striking thing about this ensemble is that most of them are well beyond the age of retirement.  Some have indeed retired, but others are still active and seemingly oblivious to the fact their 60th birthday is way behind them.  True to his rigorously objective style of filmmaking, Depardon rarely intervenes in the film.  He just positions the camera in front of his objects of interest and records their routine tasks or conversations.  The pace of the film reflects the pace of life of the people in it - slow, unhurried, relaxed.  When so such modern cinema is just a mad flurry of mindless activity, it is a rare delight to come across a film which doesn't feel like a jet-propelled treadmill.  The long, static take may be a rarity these days, but Depardon shows how it can be used to spellbinding effect, taking us into the simple, unadorned lives of his fascinating protagonists.

The individual who receives most attention in this film is Louis Brès, a retired farmer in his mid-80s who, despite being infirm and living alone, is still reluctant to give up the old ways.  Louis's experience shows up the solidarity that exists between farmers in a remote rural community.  Louis is allowed to go on living the life he is used to thanks to the kindness of his neighbours, who give up their time to visit him and tend to his needs.  His death at the end of the film is both poignant and highly symbolic, as it represents not just the passing of an individual, but the passing of a whole way of life.  Most of those who gather to attend Louis's funeral are not much younger than he is, and when they too have gone it will be as if a rare and exotic species has suddenly become extinct.  The peasant farmer will be no more and another crucial link to our past will have been lost.  Such is progress.

Film Synopsis

In the year 2000, the journalist-filmmaker Raymond Depardon returns to the rural France of his happy childhood.  Having gained the confidence of several smallscale farmers, many of whom are at or beyond the age of retirement, he gets them to talk about their concerns, be it their mistrust of those they trade with or their anxiety about the future.  What Depardon paints is a picture of a way of life that is rapidly becoming a thing of the past.  What will the countryside look like when this stoical old race has left the scene...?