Modern Life/La Vie Moderne

JOHN FORD is said to have claimed that the most compelling image in cinema is that of the human face. The old master would, I suspect, have relished the craggy, creviced physiognomical landscapes on display in this wonderful documentary.

Modern Life, the third film in a series following the struggles of dairy farmers in a mountainous, pebble-strewn area of southern France, does spend a little time examining what has happened to its subjects since 2005's Le Quotidien.

Marcel and Raymond Privat, two elderly brothers, are failing to make friends with their nephew’s suspiciously metropolitan bride. Daniel Jean Roy, a man of indeterminate age with indescribable teeth, continues to work his family’s farm, but freely admits – before smiling parents and an ill-tempered dog – that he would happily do almost anything else for a living. An amiable young couple discuss the death of the earlier films’ oldest cast member.

There are stories worth attending to here, but nobody could mistake Modern Lifefor a vérité soap opera. Director Raymond Depardon, a distinguished still photographer, listens to his subjects, but his main concern is to gaze, gaze and gaze again.

Each episode begins with a lengthy single take, in which, to the accompaniment of tunes by Gabriel Fauré, the camera moves along a country road towards the unprepossessing home of the next farmer.

The odd question is then asked. But, as often as not, Dapardon will allow these eccentric folk to mutter their unaccompanied way from one silence to the next.

In one bizarre sequence he points his camera at the hypnotically strange Paul Argaud – a hairy protestant with the features of a medieval hermit – as he, for no good reason, watches the televised funeral of a French cleric. Elsewhere, during his discussions with Marcel and Germaine Challaye, a charming elderly couple, we smile as the old lady offers a biscuit to a crew member over the director’s right shoulder.

If you were feeling mean- spirited, you might accuse Dapordon of exploiting the farmers' apparent strangeness for comic effect. It is certainly true that the older subjects of Modern Lifehave as much in common with the average urban filmgoer as they do with bacteria on the outer moons of Neptune.

But, to my mind, the static camera conveys a reverence for these brave folk – and an interest in their extraordinary faces – that repels any accusations of condescension. The film is a marvel.

Directed by Raymond Depardon PG cert, Light House, Dublin, 80 min★★★★