Customer Reviews

The Farmer's Wife [VHS]

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Proves that real life is more absorbing and dramatic than fiction. With the camera right in the faces of a farm couple from Nebraska, we see them struggle with financial disaster after several seasons of drought. We root for the family as Juanita matures and learns to deal with farm credit agency bureaucrats, banks, etc. We feel the couple's frustration and pain as they are unable to pay their bills to local feed stores, etc. and must ask for patience on the part of the merchants. We see the love for the children and the devotion to their church. Both adults are working two jobs (he at a hated job in a sheet metal factory as well as on his farm and his father's farm and she cleaning houses while looking after her own family and taking college classes). Still they can't get caught up financially, let alone ahead. It's a gut-wrenching story that holds out hope at the end with a rainy spring and a late frost resulting in a good harvest. It is also a paean to the family farm and makes you sympathetic to the people who want to work the land without being part of a huge industrial agriculture. Bravo to the director and to the farm family who opened their home to his intrusion so that we might know their story.

My wife and I watched the Farmers Wife when it first aired on PBS. The strength this couple has is overwhelming.They showed raw,honest emotion that had us glued to our set for 3 nights. At the end of the film you feel as if you know these people and want to know them forever. If you have ever fallen upon hard times,true hard times,this film will give you hope that love,hard work and faith will pull you through.I bought The Farmers Wife(VHS) for my wife's birthday this year and it will be something that we will share with our families and friends.We will cheerish it and watch it often,because in it's own way it gives us a little more strength than we had before we sat down to watch it.Any hard working family man or woman will love and respect this wonderful film.

This is an excellent documentary on the trials and tribulations of living on a farm and trying to make ends meet. You cannot help but feel connected to the "characters"/real life family as they struggle to keep food on the table, run a successful and productive farm and maintain a normal loving family life! A must see!

Is there a better documentary? I haven't seen one. Although six and a half hours long, The Farmer's Wife never drags. It is amazing that independent film maker David Sutherland could choose as his subject a young Nebraskan farm family, Juanita and Darrel Buschkoetter and their three daughters, and out of their lives create such a masterpiece of documentary. How he got them to be so natural and so open and so sharing of the intimate details of their lives; how he got such stark, clear, and engaging footage of their lives, and how he was able to edit it so that it plays like a movie is something to behold, literally.

Somehow Juanita and Darrel became themselves in front of the cameras, somehow they were able to open their hearts and minds to us, and to show us what it is like to be family farmers in America's Midwest in the 1990's. We watch them raise their family while they struggle to make ends meet despite a capricious marketplace that cares for them not at all, and all the while, almost naked to the world, they are able to maintain their human dignity, indeed to set an example of strength and courage for all of us. To see Juanita slop the hogs with one arm while cradling her two-year-old in the other, and to do so with grace and skill and a kind of old fashioned dignity will set your heart and mind to spinning. This is as real as it gets.

Sutherland shows the Buschkoetters, warts and all, but at no time does he demean them or make them look less than heroic. Yes, heroic in the sense that theirs is a life lived fully in a way that humans have lived for thousands of years, a way of life too hard and too demanding for most of us to bear, certainly too much for me. It is a poignant story, the stuff of country ballads and short stories from literary magazines, done with the skill and vision of a great film maker. If this doesn't touch your heart, you, like the tin man, need to see the Wizard of Oz.

The plight of the small farmer is not fully recognized by those people who are not directly involved. This film is the best way to relate to the joys, and struggles of small farming.

No one who watches this film will pass a farm, and look at it in the same way as before. And they will never forget Juanita and Darrel. Never! Hopefully, they will also want to then read the statistics on the Farm Aid Website, and get involved before it is too late.

There are few films or documentaries that convey such a quiet sense of miracle as this. A farm family's honest sharing of financial and marital difficulties provides a bounty of core values for any viewer to reflect on and be inspired by. The natural portrayal of each individual's unique qualities- both the good and the less admirable are unself-consciously revealed as though the camera was not there.

From her deep well of faith, Juanita draws up a love story of such resourceful courage, of such a resilient balance of self assertion and selfless family ministry, that she achieves unassuming heroine status. Her husband Darrel, good guy though he is, finally achieves transcendent manhood through the full realization of just how much he loves and appreciates her. An example for all males whose outer frustrations and inner struggles of self-esteem and ego result in acting out negatively toward those who hold the essence of their lives. Though the setting is farm country; the issues are universal and timeless. Should be required viewing in high schools, and standard viewing for couples approaching marriage or encountering marital struggles.

Want to witness a quiet miracle, something satisfyingly real? Join this family for six-plus hours and be lastingly enriched. (This one's for you, mom.)

Just a note on this hippie from california. You don't just plant a garden on a farm operation. You don't just have some hens for EGgs. They dont live on a commune in southern California and your delusional Kum baya post is silly. First off planting a Garden in Nebraska is like putting a Cactus at the north pole. There is 1200 different kinds of weeds prevalent in the agricultural midwest and having a garden big enough for self sustaining would take hours per day to maintain and only produce when there was enough rain. I especially like the little snippet about getting some chickens. WTF! Eggs for lunch Eggs for Dinner EGGs for BKFST. Of course that would only work in the non-winter months because unless the chicken house was heated in january you would find chickens frozen solid. And if anyone like me who has lived on a farm knows that heating a chicken house would cost a pretty significant chunk of dough. Of course the whole chicken thing is rediculous because at 35 cents a dozen at the market it would be 3 times cheaper to go to the store for eggs. Pe

This video collection will have you thinking twice about your own situation in this life. You will be thankful, hopefully, because the Farmer and his wife and their 3 daughters struggle for years through a financial hardship. How they make it, well you will just have to see this series. It is worth your money if you like mini series collections. It is intense, I first saw this series on PBS years ago, and it never left my mind. I felt for this family of 5. Great series.

The Farmer's Wife is the story of Juanita and Darrel Buschkoetter, a young Nebraskan farm couple who face seemingly insurmountable economic hardship, only to confront even greater challenges arising from their damaged marriage. Out of their epic struggle emerges a compelling story of faith, perseverance, triumph, and an inspiring example of ordinary people holding on to the dreams -- and each other. Drawing upon more than 200 hours of film shot on location over a period of three years, independent filmmaker David Sutherland has crafted a 6 hour, 30 minute Midwestern true-life saga that is unique, compelling, and unforgettable.

I watched the series first on Frontline (PBS) and taped part of it. We watch the taped part over and over at home, but I never saw the ending, which I hear is happy, so I'm buying the video today. It is relaxing to watch. Sometimes, after a hard day's work, I turn on Farmer's Wife, and I can identify with Juanita's sadness, or sometimes I think maybe my life isn't so bad compared to some of their struggles.... My kids (age 5, 4 and 1) like the video and especially the daughters in the film. My husband and I want to purchase a farm, and this show, shows the ups and downs of farming. It also shows the differences in mind sets of Juanita and Darryl. Darryl couldn't understand that Juanita wanted to make flowers for her sisters wedding, and get away for a weekend. He viewed it as in-laws imposing on her, when couldn't they see how much she had to do already? He sure worked hard to keep up with the bills. They are to be commended! One thing, I didn't understand though, was why I never saw a garden on their land. Juanita went to a Christian charity to get food. If you have land, you can grow and preserve food through canning, etc. They probably could have eaten one of their pigs instead of selling them for a loss. I just got the impression that Juanita wasn't totally sold on being the stay-at-home, traditional farmer's wife. She wanted and pursued a desk job, where she seemed to blossom. I wish them the best, and would like to see an update (especially on the very cute daughters). I wonder if any of the money made on these videos goes to them. Perhaps they are financially better off since the video. God bless.