While going to an American documentary, in most cases we can expect one thing for certain – talking heads on an arranged or virtual, green screen, telling stories of their lives, interspersed with archival materials from private, idyllic, family VHS recordings. In their The Truffle Hunters, Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw go in a different direction. Perhaps it is the influence of the place where they spent several years working on the film, of beautiful Piedmontese Italy, where the landscape plays the leading role. Perhaps one can also feel the unique atmosphere of Italy from Call me by your name by Luca Guadagnino, who took the producer’s guardianship over The Truffle Hunters. Regardless of the real reason, the film by the American directors duo stands out positively against the background of an excellent number of contemporary American documentaries.
The creators tried to combine tasteful – pictorial, so to say – frames on the one hand, and simple, human stories on the other, linking this style with an atmosphere characteristic of the place and people, trying to evoke the spirit of truffles. From the ancient truffle hunters, through traders through whose hands huge amounts of money and valuable mushrooms pass, to the world of truffle sommeliers and consumer crème de la crème, who – the privileged minority – can afford to eat the most expensive mushrooms in the world.
In this subtly painted narrative, the true essence of the film is sometimes blurred – the conflict between the old and the new world, the extinction of not only the age-old truffle hunters, but also the culture of the foragers clashed with the undying needs of consumer society. Although Dweck and Kershaw try to keep their distance from neutral documentary filmmakers, positioning frames worthy of southern masters of painting reveals this tension. After all, in the irony of the film’s characters and their insanely close relations with loyal dogs, one can sense the awareness of the impending end of this truffle world. Therefore, The Truffle Hunters is an image as funny, seasoned with black humor, as it is sad.
Although the work of the American filmmakers duo is undoubtedly a pleasant, visually interesting, and even imaginative and film-explorative show, it seems that the delicacy of the narrative has covered the claw of the involved commentary. Although in many places in the film there are suggestions deconstructing the conflict of big money with pure passion, such as contrasting scenes from the life of foragers with scenes straight from the truffle stock market, the viewer will probably only be left with afterimages of Italian landscapes after the screening, which will pass just as fast, as the nostalgic world of truffle hunters with rules.
Perhaps Dweck and Kershaw lacked a reporter’s nose worthy of a truffle pig, perhaps the beautiful Italian landscape has overspread what is the most important: without offending these intelligent and charming animals, the real pigs are dressed in suits and eat foie gras with grated truffles.
