It might seem odd that a film in which a still camera records the demise of a group of people through financial hardship and the toil of old age can be entertaining and even funny, when melancholy should overwhelm the whole experience sending you into a tailspin of depression.

And yet Modern Life (La Vie Moderne), a sensitive study of French farmers who represent a dying breed of once independent and viable land workers, somehow keeps you from sadness. Instead, it offers gentle intimacy and honesty – something so difficult to achieve when your contributors are often too aware of the camera and its power to misrepresent.

Animation, unusual cutting styles, archive footage to set the story in context – none of these techniques are used here. Fans of Errol Morris’ deliberate, unflinching and sometimes painfully intense interview style will feel echoes in these portraits drawn at family kitchen tables, out in fields and amongst dwindling livestock.

Director Raymond Depardon is a renowned photographer and a member of Magnum, the world’s most prestigious photographic agency. He is also the son of farmers, and he took his very first photographs within his parent’s 16th century estate. In 2005, Depardon directed What’s New at Garet? (Quoi de neuf au Garet?) a personal conversation with his brother about the sale of that farm, and so this affecting film is in many ways an extension of that lament.

Have these people struggled for so long for nothing? Were these people the sign of a certain time and set of attitudes? Perhaps their lack of legacy only seems natural in our so-called modern world?

There’s a beautiful calm quality to this gem of a film that takes a while to appreciate, but it is very much worth the investment in time and concentration. The faces of these people are something I’ll remember for a long time.