White Material Review

• 8th Dec 2010

Director Claire Denis returned to her roots in this slow burning civil war drama set in an unnamed African country. Denis herself spent part of her childhood in Cameroon and was given permission to film there. It is also a return to the location of her first film, the autobiographical Chocolat (1988). Denis was born in Paris, but raised in Burkina Faso, Somalia, Senegal and Cameroon as the daughter of a French civil servant. The origins of the film came from the films lead Isabelle Huppert who several years ago said to Denis that she would very much like to work with her. Huppert had wanted Denis to adapt to the screen Doris Lessing’s 1950 novel, ‘The Grass is Singing’ (previously filmed in 1981) and this was the origins of White Material. However, Denis drifted away from adapting the novel, not wishing to be constrained by that particular narrative.

In many ways the film is also a vehicle for Huppert with Yves Cape’s cinematography gently focused on Huppert and the landscape that surrounds her, focussing on the organic qualities of the actress and her surroundings. Indeed in the opening shot she is shown lost, amidst the scrub and red soil of central Africa. In the scenes in which she does not appear, the narrative becomes somewhat more dramatic until the films dénouement (which I won’t give away here). The title, White Material, obviously alludes to the death of colonialism in Africa and its dying vestiges, in this case French colonialism. It is clearly a turning of the tables of the white masters over their black servants in a truly a post-colonial Africa. France is mentioned in passing as an ideal or a distant land that clearly seems impossible to reach. Huppert and her family here are clearly among the last left in this unnamed African country that could recall any number of civil wars in recent years, be it Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Congo or Angola. But the global political aspect of the film shouldn’t be overstated.

It is a film that improves on repeat viewing as the nuances of the plot will become clearer. It opens with Isabelle Huppert as Maria Vial walking, seemingly lost and confused down a dirt road. At her coffee plantation that she runs with her husband (Christophe Lambert) and lives there with him, his ageing father and the couple’s increasingly apathetic son on the verge of insanity himself. The plantation’s work force are fleeing a bloody civil war taking place in the country as rebel forces come closer, led by the charismatic rebel leader known as The Boxer (played by the much underused Isaach de Bankolé) who are fighting government forces both of whom are blaming colonialists for supporting each opposing side. Meanwhile, Maria Vial is determined to gather the coffee beans in time and pays another local work force. Her husband who, unlike her was born in Africa sees how dangerous their situation is and pleads with a local mayor to allow them safe passage.

The film is more accessible than many of Denis’ previous films such as Beau Travail (1999) and Vendredi Soir (2002), both of which are beautifully crafted but very slow going. In Trouble Every Day (2002) she made a movie about a blood lusting vampire that had a much better pace to it, but was otherwise somewhat flawed and ultimately silly. Here, however, the film is convincing and will engross the viewer, yet still maintains that deliberately slow pace; something that Lambert points out in an interview on the disc, an actor better known for action films like Highlander than he is for slow burning dramas of the likes of White Material. The background of the civil war is suitably tense and does a good job in creating a sense of urgency and the danger that awaits just around the corner, brilliantly realised with the scene in which Madame Vial must pay corrupt rebels at a roadblock or the desperation of the workforce who use the extremes of forcing her at gunpoint to take them back to their families. It still has that dreamy sense of movement familiar to many of Denis’ films and the atmosphere of the film is greatly enhanced by Yves Cape’s cinematography and a superb soundtrack by British band, the Tindersticks, whose fourth soundtrack for Denis this film is. A film definitely worth repeat viewing.

The only extras on the DVD are an interview with Denis and Lambert and a film trailer.

Chris Hick