Review by Anu Sahota

Modern Life (La Vie Moderne) is the third in French photojournalist and documentarian Raymond Depardon's profils paysans films (L'Approche and Le Quotidien are the first two) set in the small agricultural areas of southern France. This somber film (which begins with a long take from Depardon's dashboard mounted camera to the music of Gabriel Faure's Elegie Op. 24) has Depardon returning to interview dairy farmers in the mountanous Haut-Garonne region.

Quotidien chores are filmed in a way that recalls those 17th Century portraits of rural life so familar to most. However Depardon's images are heavy with an awareness that the labour that these farmers have long dedicated themselves will not pass through time much longer. Depardon, who was himself raised on a farm, does not spell out why this is the case, instead it's gleaned through what the farmers tell him about family members who have moved away and failed to take up the family business. Those who never had children are still working, like octogenrarian brothers Raymond and Marcel Privat.

As the couple seated in front of me rose from their seats at the film's end, the husband turned to his wife and sighed, "that's not an easy life; no one wants to work that hard." No, not anymore.

Modern Life
Raymond Depardon | France | 2008 | 90min