The Truffle Hunters has a great subject—aging Italian foragers and their dogs, carrying on the storied tradition of searching forests for the rare fungi—but its true strength is in its compositions. Directors Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw, who also handle the cinematography, frame and light these men as if they were sitting for Rembrandt or Vermeer. And so two friends share hunting memories while sitting in a dank cellar, a shaft of light illuminating their reverie. Another subject sits at a table of towering tomatoes, his head peering just above the pile in a comical still life. Then there are the landscapes, including a freckled forest portrait that reveals, as the camera closes in, the figure of a hunter and his dogs wending their way through the leaves. The Truffle Hunters is beautiful, but also personable, as we learn—mostly via unfussy observation—about the ancient bachelor musing on where his beloved dog will go when he dies; the frisky nonagenarian who sneaks out of his window at night to hunt, against his wife’s wishes; and the furious retiree who vows to no longer harvest truffles because of the greed and competition (poisoning dogs, disregarding boundaries) that has infected the craft and turned it into something crass. The sad realization at the end of the documentary is that it serves not only as a portrait of a pastime, but a time capsule of a pastime soon to be extinct.
