Modern Life

Raymond Depardon's 2008 documentary returns one last time to the mountain farmers he has been following for more than ten years. It is the final part of the Profils paysans trilogy, whose first two films were made in 2001 and 2005. Across the Cévennes, Haute-Loire and Ardèche, Depardon is someone who earned the right to walk into these people's kitchens, barns and dinner tables over the course of years, and the footage shows it. The questions are short and the answers shorter; what actually speaks is the silences and the way people stand. Alongside the old farmers, younger people trying to stay on the land come in this time. A film that records a disappearing way of life without keening over it. It screened in Un Certain Regard at Cannes.