Movie Breakdown: The Truffle Hunters (Noah)

Pre-Screening Stance:

People love this movie. I love documentaries. I imagine I will also love this movie.

Post-Screening Ramble:

The Truffle Hunters is a testament to the power of a documentary. The film follows a handful of aging truffle hunters (and the commercial eco-system that has built up around them) somewhere, purposefully secretive, in Italy. The camera follows them as they trek through the woods, beloved truffle-sniffing dogs at their sides, searching for the fungal gold that will keep them afloat. The subjects are elderly men who’ve spent their entire lives in the strange, secretive world of truffle hunting, but that simpler time of man communing with his dog and the outdoors seems to be coming to an end. On the surface, The Truffle Hunters is a charming film about charming old men and their intimate relationships with their dogs (you’ve never seen people more invested in the healthy, happy lives of their pets). Directors Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw compose their unbelievably beautifully shots and then just let their subjects – rascally humans they are – move within them. It’s as well staged as a Wes Anderson movie, with characters equal or more so in their eccentricities. But this isn’t just a film about old men and their obsessions, this is a film about the passing of a simpler, seemingly more enjoyable, way of life. The truffle hunters are slowly starting to fade away as greed, consumerism and the slow, inevitable effects of climate change erode the world they love. The Truffle Hunters is a document of a certain type of human that is less and less likely to exist in the future. These are people who have hunted the woods for years, living by a code of conduct only they know. But as the worth of truffles becomes more and more, outside operators are keying in and they’re not there to appreciate the natural world, they’re around to make money regardless of the cost or tactic it takes to do so. You can watch The Truffle Hunters as a delicate ode to these roguish fellows (and their dogs, always their dogs) or you can be pulled into the subtext so artfully restrained below. Either way, this is a wonderful film.

One Last Thought:

Bibette is a real charmer.