The Truffle Hunters

This charming documentary pays tribute to a group of elderly foragers and their trust canine companions.

When I was young, I knew that there was someone called God, who lived way up in the sky. I learned that He made Heaven and Earth and all the bits and pieces in between, which sadly included mushrooms, the sworn enemy of my youthful palette. A while after learning about God, and having gone through five years of Catholic education, I knew I didn’t have much time for them. But, after watching Gregory Kershaw and Michael Dweck’s ambrosial documentary The Truffle Hunters, it’s evident the divine wasn’t far above, but just underfoot – and I’d been converted to give mushrooms another try.

Unearthed in the greenery of Piedmont, Italy, the film’s subjects are a rich and nutritiously spry collection of elderly gentlemen who spend their days and nights hunting for truffles, with the help of their beloved, scene-stealing dogs. Opening with a stalking zoom straight from the paranoia thriller playbook, despite the hunters’ walking sticks and shaky demeanour, their forest-floor chase is immediately garnished with intensity and shrouded in mystery. It feels like less of a harvest and more of an excavation, because in the ground lie holy artefacts, and their toiling for them is an unending act of faith.

The Truffle Hunters has no opening explanatory title card; the hunters themselves are only named when it comes up in their conversations and the exact location of their pursuits is never totally clear. The prize itself is kept tantalisingly away from close-ups, as if it’s the Ark of the Covenant and us mere mortals will be blinded by it, whereas these monastic forest dwellers are pure enough to do so. Their muddy-fingered, welly boot-squelching craft is caught in locked off, meditatively long takes, suitably reflecting the delicacy and patience hiding under the anoraks.

Escaping the forest, the business end of the pursuit provides a glimpse into the lives of the truffle salesmen and the restaurateurs serving them, who seem to be some kind of mushroom mafia. With tales of family ties, territory wars, old hunters who got out of the game, and deals cut in dimly lit alleys, the Piedmont cobbles are undeniably mean streets.

Despite death being on the line – albeit from old age rather than getting whacked for selling dodgy gear – the hunters’ commitment is infectious, their passion for truffles rivalled only by their romance with their dogs. The true stars of the show are the supporting canine cast, skilled hunters themselves who, like a therapist in a teen movie, give the main characters someone to open up to. They share dinner plates, birthday cakes and musings on the afterlife, each interaction treated with tenderness that it’s hard not to be moved.

Its gnarled, subterranean subject may be shrouded in a biblical halo, but The Truffle Hunters sublime focus on the natural world and both its flora and fauna inhabitants offers calming reassurance for the unwashed. Treading through it, digging at it, hiding under it, we’re reminded that hallowed ground is just under our feet.

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Published 8 Jul 2021

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