The Collector: The Portrait of a Lifelong Rubbish Scavenger
The Collector, a documentary by Martin Hampton, is a portrait of Christian, a lifelong collector of rubbish, who for the last 50 years has “worked” the streets of his local village in Provence, France. Every night, from midnight till dawn Christian makes a careful circuit of the town’s dustbins, picking up things that have been thrown out by his fellow villagers that he considers to be still useful. These are added to his ever-burgeoning collection, which now fills the three plots of land he inherited from his grandparents.
While at first Christian seems to be utterly mad, it becomes apparent that he has a well thought through philosophy to back up his endless foraging. He despairs about the wastage of modern life and works 365 days a year to salvage it. Using his home and land to store and hide away his findings, Christian occasionally sells or gives them to his fellow townspeople.
The second part of the film revisits Christian after 3 years to find him adapting to harsh new restrictions on his collecting that have been imposed by his nemesis, the town’s mayor. The mayor has banned him from collecting, but Christian still goes out under the cover of nighttime darkness to continue his work of preventing waste and gathering things that could still be useful to the community.
The Collector: The Portrait of a Lifelong Rubbish Scavenger
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