The Truffle Hunters - Movie Review

By Christine Gagnon

2020 – Documentary – 1:24 min.

Written, directed, filmed and produced by : Michael Dweck & Gregory Kershaw

Language : Italian with English subtitles. Distributed by Sony Pictures Classics.

Official site: etrufflehuntersmovie.com.

On a sweltering summer afternoon, I, and the president of the Canada Truffle Association, Mario Des Forges, took refuge in theatre to see the movie Truffle Hunters. Given our interest in truffles, we were curious to see it. You need not be a connoisseur to appreciate Truffle Hunters. This movie, which premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film, paints the portrait of four truffle hunters from the Piemont region in Italy, all aged between seventy and eighty-five, and of peripheral characters typically associated with the truffle market.

Some of the themes addressed include the contrast between the price paid to the hunter for his harvest and the price paid for a truffle being sold at an auction, as well as the conditions under which the hunters practice their activity. One scene during which a priest blesses a truffle hunter and his dog prior to the beginning of the season emphasizes the importance of traditions associated with this activity.

The characters each represent an archetype of the truffle hunter. One is a landowner who quit the business although he was still able to hunt. The conversations with him suggest that he no longer found pleasure in the activity. He speaks of middlemen who are too greedy, of fellow hunters being disrespectful of traditions and territories, and of the competition between the hunters which renders the activity increasingly perilous. Indeed, the opening images suggest that some hunters are willing to go to extremes in order to find truffles.

A second one is a poacher, who seeks truffles on other people’s properties. He laments the fact that the landowners leave poison on the ground and that he lost two of his loyal dogs because they ingested it.

The scenes involving a hunter named Carlo and his wife suggest that the truffle supersedes Madame in Carlo’s heart, and Madame must constantly call her husband to order so that he come and help her with the farm chores instead of going truffle hunting. Carlo particularly likes to hunt by night. Is it because he wants no one to know where he hunts, or is it because he, too, hunts on other people’s land without their permission?

The three active hunters work with one or more truffle dog, and they appear to be completely dependent on them to find truffles. The movie spends time showing the at times symbiotic relationship between the hunter and his dog, but does not expolre how a dog is trained to search for truffles, what breed of dog should be used, or how does one identify a place where truffles would likely be found. Much in the way an old hunter who refuses to share his knowledge with the next generation, the movie jealously guards the technical details and only reveals what serves the scenario.

The movie also illustrates that truffle lovers are passionate people. One scene shows the reverential pleasure of merchant enjoying a simple fried egg topped with a generous serving of truffle shavings. He silently and deliberately savors each mouthfull and communicates to us the flavor which this unique ingredient must have.

I particularly liked one scene where women are taught how to describe the aroma of a truffle which they smell from a wine glass. Incidentally, this very scene highlights the fact that truffle hunting remains a man’s business, and that women are relegated to secondary roles, such as showcasing a truffle in preparation for an auction.

The sad reality is that most of the truffle hunters exercize their activity at the détriment of landowners; the latter apparently receive no compensation for the intrusions inflicted upon their property; the hunters are paid a small fraction of the price a truffle fetches on the international market, while the middlemen live lavishly from the income derived from the truffle business.

How will climate change, urban sprawl, loss of habitat, globalization, or the increasingly restricted access to private forest, affect the viability of wild truffles in the future?

The truffle industry is many centuries old, but it is inexorably vowed to change if it wants to continue. Therein lies the interest of Truffle Hunters, which immortalizes at a given point in time, the way in which wild truffles were foraged in Italy, because this way of life and way of doing are vowed to disappear, unless they are already over…