Modern Life begins with a winding shot from a car mounted camera as it descends through a spectacular French sunset into a farming hamlet, seemingly very far away from any modern place. It felt like travelling back through time yet also looking to our own, possible future; a world without complex financial instruments, without greed and without corruption; a simple and enduring existence.
Director Raymond Depardon grew up on a farm and, despite having escaped at age 16, ended up dedicating 20 years of his life to chronicling the lives of these traditional farmers. He has stated that both he and his film-making partner Claudine Nougaret wanted to avoid making yet another film that portrays the lives of farmers as depressing or nostalgic; it certainly does not seem nostalgic. This is not the passionate, communal and adventurous world of Manon Des Sources; this is real and depressingly so.
Depardon claims the farmers are without self-consciousness, unlike us modern, media savvy, city people. However, this appears false. Almost every single character seems quite aware of the artificiality of being filmed and of being probed by personal questions that could lead them into private matters they do not wish to discuss.
To begin with, Depardon allows space for his subjects to just be; he does not direct them to behave or act in any way that is unusual or unnatural. At first this is refreshing and amusing (a scene with the two elderly “uncles”, one of whom says more through the shrugging of his right shoulder than through any words) but after the halfway point of the film, it just becomes irritating. At the same time that he is allowing them space, he is missing opportunities to lead them into more interesting discussions, opportunities they offer up themselves. There are several subjects it would have been interesting to hear their points of view on but Depardon allows these opportunities to slip him by, all in the name of non-interference. Maybe that’s a modern, impatient view of things. After all, this is Depardon’s film and he can choose to make it anyway he pleases; anyone whose goal is to spend ten years making a film is clearly beholden to no-one.
By the end, the farmers come across as simple-minded rather than simple; unable to make decisions, with often immature, naive outlooks on life and incapable of solving their problems. Ironically, it is standard to consider country folk as far more capable than city dwellers but afterwards, I found I had become quite partisan in my belief that despite all its stress, pressure and dislocation from nature, city living is better; we are more advanced, more worldly and experienced, better able to find solutions through lateral thinking, more cultured and more open to new ideas and people.
I had gone in expecting to be grounded spiritually and compelled to recognise how pointless my city existence was but in fact it had quite the opposite effect; this farming life was nothing to be desired whatsoever. It looked dull, repetitive and without hope. The men were simple and emotionally immature, the women hardy and ugly. Even the dogs bit their owners.
I empathised with the dogs.