Profils Paysans: L'approche

This first film of the trilogy profiles a number of small family farms run by young farmers, single pensioners and poor couples. Raymond Depardon talks about his approach to these smallholdings in the Lozère, Haute-Saône, Ardèche and Haute-Loire regions of France. These French districts have for centuries been used for agriculture and animals. The tradition, however, has to move aside for modernism. The old farms are converted into luxury mansions and agriculture has been taken over by large, streamlined enterprises. Young, small-scale farmers see their plans scuppered by EU rules and financial obstacles.

Depardon looks at the men and women who persevere in a traditional farming life in spite of this. The film evokes a vague desire for simplicity and pure beauty. But what a city dweller at first regards as a sober and calm rhythm of life turns out in practice to be often fundamental poverty and unavoidable isolation.