The Truffle Hunters

Are you ready for a little mid-winter trip to the forests of Piedmont in northern Italy? Well, then, “The Truffle Hunters” is for you. Called quirky, enchanting, funny, and strange, this film follows the hunters, all men in their 80’s and 90’s, and their specially trained dogs during their nightly searches for the rare white Alba truffle called “the diamond of the kitchen.” (Female pigs who need no training are traditionally used in France. These sows instinctively hunt for truffles but eat too many of them. Dogs must be taught to dig in the dirt for the truffles but they don’t eat them.) Shooting the film, the directors had the dogs fitted with GoPro cameras strapped on their heads so the viewer rides along with them to find these fragrant fungi.

The film is made up of “set-up shots” that are approached like “conversations,” filmed often behind black curtain-like wildlife hunters in a blind. Nothing and no one is ever hurried and they averaged one shot a day. We meet the hunters (who farm during the day), their dogs, and the special relationship between them. Reviewing the film, at one point, the directors realized that even the dialect that the men were using was unique and only for their dogs. “The interdependency between man and dog seems almost as profound as between truffle and tree.” 

A few of the men include Aurelio, who explains that because he has Birba, his dog, he has never needed a wife. She sits at the table with him as he eats, sharing his food, while he explains to her that he is looking for a woman to whom he can leave his house and she will take care of Birba. Carlo is married and nightly sneaks out the window with his dog, Titina, to hunt even though his wife constantly forbids it and she is often seen yelling out the window for him. Angelo, an angry retired hunter and poet with a typewriter, brags about his past life with women and complains about the young people “who don’t want to play with their dogs or spend time in nature—they just want money.” In one tantalizing shot, a portly gentleman, who is a truffle expert, savors a long lunch of red wine and a fried egg covered with truffle shavings to the strains of Tosca. Try not to salivate during this!

Endangered subcultures are the specialty of the directors Michael Dweck and Gregory Keshaw. (Their last film was “The Last Race” about a stock car race threatened by redevelopment.) They spent three years in the village of Piedmont and report that “it was so joyful to be there. They have a closeness to nature and a closeness to animals that we think is one of the reasons that they celebrate this life.”  Harvesting truffles from October to December, after hundreds of years, is a dying art and the old men contribute to that. They keep their secrets and resist any succession planning although truffles are getting more expensive and the market can be ruthless. 

Competition is fierce; at times competitors have left strychnine bait killing their rivals’ dogs. Kershaw states that “the brokers make deals with buyers in these back alleys. From day to day no one knows what the price should be.” And the hunters get a fraction of what these valuable fungi sell for on the market. Moved by the loss of the land and the people, Dweck said that they hope to help safeguard the Piedmont truffle culture in two ways: (1) a conservation effort to raise money to buy land on behalf of the locals, preventing deforestation of the oak trees on which the truffles grow; and (2) an education initiative to bring up the next generation of truffle hunters, teaching them how to manage the delicate fungus lifecycle and the wider forest ecosystem. Let’s hope they succeed. And you will understand why after you stream this film.

(Available DVD: Netflix; Streaming: Amazon Prime, You Tube, Hulu)

-- Jane Hilburt-Davis