A steep slope stained with green and orange; the same forest, now barren, kissed by fresh snow; an abundance of fresh tomatoes scattered on a rustic table. These are just some of the picturesque scenes from The truffle hunters, a silently impressive documentary about elderly foragers in search of that precious white fungus. The film, which will be released on March 5, is not just a beautiful sight – Italian travel pornography that arouses the desire for Old World travel – although it certainly is that too. An ode to slow life, the film captures a humble tradition, its observational style subtly exposing major socio-political issues surrounding a luxury business.
Do you know who chose your truffles? The heady whites scented with an unmistakable smell? It is not who you may have thought. Keeping the cultural tradition, an eccentric group of agile septua- and octogenarians unearthed Tuber magnatum, the truffle of Alba, outside the small Piedmontese village of Moncalvo. Absolutely necessary to find truffles are your canine companions. “A bad dog is like a useless diploma,” says a man, who serves dinner to his dog in fine china next to him at the table. Another hunter sings to his dogs as if they are beloved children. With scenes dedicated to the daily occurrences of their lives, the film is both a food documentary and one from nature – an uninhibited and unprecedented glimpse of a disappearing world.
Archiving the exhibition track of many popular culinary films and TV shows, which aim to inform viewers as much as possible, The truffle hunters unfolds like a series of vignettes often without words. Without an authoritarian presence, such as narration, explanations or direct interviews, much is left unsaid and unexplained about the art and practice of truffle hunting. For example: which breed of dog has the best nose? How do you train them? Who will inherit this practice in the future? These questions remain unanswered, which is both a decision of the filmmaker and the fragmentary fruit of his limitations. Dweck and Kershaw worked on the film for three years, gaining confidence and access to this little-seen subculture.
Scattered throughout the film are some tangential insights into the commercial life of a truffle after it was pulled out of the ground. Foragers negotiate with intermediaries; intermediaries call customers and chefs; truffles are collected and auctioned at a fair – all gentle reminders of the capitalist supply chain. There is no market for misshapen truffles, so hunters are pressured to find perfect specimens – which is difficult when harvesting depends on uncontrollable conditions. A hunter, a Saruman-looking drinker, came out of the game entirely. Tapping an explanation with appeal on his Olivetti typewriter, he explains that the integrity of truffle hunting has been undermined by fierce competition and foul play, including trespassing and even dog poisoning. Elsewhere, the high demand for Alba truffles has spawned a vast and lucrative counterfeit conspiracy.
Each frame looks like a painting. There are few tracking images, except for a few concise action scenes from the dog’s point of view. The filmmakers place the fixed camera in front of their subjects, which gives them a status similar to a noble portrait. This is cultural preservation through film documentation, a record of anonymous heroes – the smallest totem in a luxury food chain. Divorced from technology, foragers may not be interested in watching the final product, but it is likely that they will not be carried away by such adulation. Devoid of important questions or heavy suggestions, the Truffle hunters it allows for introspection and asks the viewer to draw their own conclusions. It is a film that stimulates your curiosity – stimulates your appetite, if you like – and takes you to go a little deeper.
Elissa Suh is a writer and editor in New York, whose work was published on IndieWire, Paste and MUBI. She publishes the moviepudding newsletter.