1946 > France > Directed by Georges Rouquier

A portrait of the Rouquier family, cousins of the director, who lived in the farming community of Aveyron in South-central France. Like legendary documentary filmmaker Robert Flaherty, Rouquier worked with non-professional performers--in this case, farmers--who acted out staged sequences that corresponded to events in their own lives. “Rouquier’s film is only superficially a documentary. He punctuates the film with time-lapse sequences that show crops growing and flowers blooming, macrophotographic sequences that show blood pumping in arteries and cellular reproduction. He blends the drama of social life in and around the farm—and the cycle of seasons that governs it—with biological analysis. The movie’s central sequence—a visual reconstruction of a century of Farrebique’s history from the family’s perspective, as narrated by the grandfather to his grandson Raymondou—is a virtual evolutionary account of the growth of a farm.” (Richard Brody, The New Yorker) Shown in a recent digital restoration. In French. Subtitled.

1 hr 40 min