White Material

It is indeed Africa and a violent one truly depicted here. In a former French colony a white woman runs a coffee plantation in a zone ravaged by the fight between the army and rebels. A courageous woman who fights against everything and everybody (Isabelle Huppert),for besides the problems of the plantation she has got family problems with her ex-husband and a half-mad son. A movie that is directed in realistic style as almost documentar although not dimming the dramatic freature of the story. Also a real document of the relationship between Africans and Europeans. A movie worth to be seen though not exactly a masterpiece as far as a few behaviours are not utterly shown nor explained.

The strengths: The colors are glorious and the cinematography is extremely direct, yet immaculately composed. I could practically feel the dirt between my toes as I was watching it; this being my second Denis film I've seen, I really can see a sensual theme to her direction! As with Beau Travail, the way the film portrayed the male body and African culture was really authentic and aesthetically pleasing. The acting is very genuine and believable, and the atmosphere is lovely. With every facial gesture Huppert made, I felt she was truly her character, determined and plodding. The score is muted, yet I would say it is *perfect*, with just the right level of mystery and ominous tension. The pacing is unique in how non-linear it is, but never lets up the intrigue. I myself did not have a hard time understanding which was a flashback or not. But on the topic of this, now we segway into the negatives, which unfortunately make this could've-been-great film a little lacking!

Negatives: The aforementioned jumbled pacing kind of kills the forward motion that the film tries to build up as it's main driving force. In the middle of a great montage it can cut back to her on the bus, in the present. I love how this film respects the audience's intelligence and doesn't announce the flashbacks at all, but the repetition and level to which it does it obscures clarity and drags the film down! However, the Achilles heel that shatters a could-be-perfect film is an unfortunately very, very prominent lack of any characterization. Everyone seems stilted and one dimensional, even Maria at most times! To relate to any of these characters, I'm not asking to be spoonfed any excessive exposition, but any would be nice. Is Manuel lazy or mentally unwell? Why does he shave his head and go off the rails, what broke inside him in the fields? Why did Andre divorce Maria? Why is Maria so attached to her plantation? Why does she dream of the Boxer? The reason I found the ending so frustrating wasn't because it wasn't the outcome I was looking for (although it wasn't). It was because it didn't make sense because I didn't have any feel of her character's emotions or motivations. In Beau Travail, the ending is similarly sad and disturbing. But somewhere in that more effective film, between the layers of obliqueness, the subtext can carry you through to the final conclusion and you can lay back and think as to how and why we got here. With all the strengths and beautiful qualities White Material embodies, I don't think we got to that point of knowledge or fulfillment.

excerpt, more at my location - In Claire Denis' White Material (shot in Cameroon), themes of colonialism and rebellion collide within the context of an unspecified African nation. The film is, at times, deeply disturbing and shocking, and marks Denis' filmmaking return to Africa (after previously studying themes of African colonialism in films such as her 1988 directorial debut Chocolat) whilst drawing on real-life experiences of growing up in the continent.

White Material is a worthwhile and thought-provoking film, even if it does not quite reach the full sum of its parts. Isabelle Huppert is intriguingly complex and engaging in the central performance, with Nicholas Duvauchelle also shining in a difficult role as a young man descending into darkness.

White Material is a film about a coffee plantation in an unnamed African country (shot in Cameroon). Maria Vial (Isabelle Huppert) runs the place for her father Henri (Michel Subor). She has a layabout son called Manuel (Nicolas Duvauchelle) and a weak-willed husband André (played by Christopher Lambert of Highlander fame).

The French army is withdrawing and the country is fractured into regular army, rebels, and newly-formed mad-dog local militias out for rape and pillage, sprung from the ground once law and order dissolves, like Ray Harryhausen's skeleton warriors of the dragon's teeth (Jason and the Argonauts).

It's time to banish the White Material, that is white folk and the trappings of white living. Maria doesn't want to know though and stays on stubbornly trying to process her coffee crop.

The film is quite pretty and captures the feel of Africa on the ground, of the isolation and the wild beauty, but also the extreme lurking danger. Denis has roots in Africa and so manages a lot of authenticity. The dialogue is occasionally awesome, soliloquies in which Maria curses whites and talks about Africa in relation to Europe particularly stand out.

Unfortunately I think there are weak elements, Lambert isn't good enough and his character isn't even necessary (which goes for Henri too), Maria does something brutal and inexplicable at the end (in true clichéd Huppert style), and the film looks like it took a severe amount of cutting as there are plot threads that are barely picked up. The film has the feel of an overly condensed epic. The biggest problem though maybe the narrative structure, where the end occurs at the beginning, which in all frankness, and with due respect to a director who has entertained me with great films more than once, comes off as amateurish.

As usual the Tindersticks provide a wonderful soundtrack for Denis, so important for an auteur to have a proper musical collaborator, but they basically paper over the cracks.

The film is good enough if you just look at is as mesmerising anarchy, but it's not a multi-faceted Denis masterpiece. Isaach De Bankolé is underused as Le Boxeur, the rebel hero general, he's a symbol of a strong moral Africa, gut-shot and dying alone. This character lingers in the memory.

One of the important works of director Claire Denis. The film is important for two major themes it explores: one, the relationships of the colonial expats and the African natives and the resulting social and economic inequality; and two, the internal politics, corruption, and lack of respect for human life when one has gun power.

The film is one of the better performances of the lead actress Isabelle Huppert, who apparently approached the director for an opportunity to work with her. Denis works with regular actors and crew. Among the cast, Michel Subor (the owner of the coffee plantation) and Isaach de Bankole (the injured 'Boxer', a name referenced on the matchboxes he uses in Jarmusch's film 'The Limits of Control') come to mind. The crew includes music composer Stuart Staples and his band Tindersticks (and Ms Denis has a great ear for music that elevates her works). What constitutes the White Material? The white colonial expatriates born and living in Africa is one way to look at it. Another would be their possessions--cigarette lighters, clothes, masks (opening sequences), immovable property, mixed-race progeny they create, indoor table decorations that young native, blonde hair, blue eyes (all of which are stated in the script).