Peter and the Farm

A troubled alcoholic farmer lets his mind wander to an onlooking documentary team who film him in situ at his bucolic Vermont farm. Peter Dunning's ruminations range from the bitter to the bittersweet to the absurd. What's remarkable is how Tony Stone conveys the link between Dunning's worldview, which can oscillate from contentment to threats of suicide, as being inextricably linked to the physical and mental toils of the farm, and the weather which ranges from tundra to balmy sunshine. What lingers is Dunning's assertion that he is now fully bodily and spiritually connected to the farm, so much so that he has become the farm.

I found this documentary on an organic farmer in Vermont who lives and farms alone in his latter years to be rich, moving, and informative. Surrounded by his beautiful acreage, he suffers all the same from loneliness, regret, and a sense of futility. Yet there are days when all 38 years of his efforts seem worth it. A fine character study, and an intriguing look at the life of a farmer in an age when most people live in urban settings and haven't a clue about what's involved in a life spent close to nature and the cycle of seasons.

Having grown up on a farm and on/off worked in agriculture for most of my adult life, I'm always drawn to check these types of documentaries out, but often find myself moving on rather quickly due to the romanticization. Most are so far detached from reality it isn't even funny; all the good parts and none of the bad. None of penny-pinching that so often plagues small farming operations while the massive operations get bail-out after bail-out, commit insurance fraud out in the open to no consequences and so on and so forth.

There is no sugarcoating here. Peter is like if Charles Bukowski had decided to become a farmer instead of a writer. Similarities don't stop there -- Peter himself is quite the artist with painting, drawing, sculpturing and even poetry. He's eccentric and destructive -- and depressed to a sometimes grotesque degree.

I don't recommend it for those with uneasy stomachs. Or anyone with a meal in front of them, for that matter. But if you're at all interested in how an old alcoholic brimming with demons lives out his day-to-day in rural Vermont on a beautifully rustic, scenic farm, this is absolutely the documentary for you.