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I have now seen Claire Denis’ devastating film twice. At first glance, I felt like I had missed the political context and ostensibly the point of the film. I wrote the film off as a “message movie” and felt more embarrassed at my white ignorance of the specific social event it was addressing than moved by the complex and subtle universal human drama that was actually on screen. Upon second viewing, White Material revealed itself as the work of a master director at the height of her powers.

White Material takes place in an unspecified country in Africa during civil war. We follow Maria (played by the always amazing Isabelle Huppert) throughout roughly 24 hours as she desperately tries to keep her coffee plantation running in light of an increasingly fierce civil war. Through flashbacks we piece together that her family has owned the plantation for many years and are well integrated into the culture and economy there. In one flashback Maria is caring for her ex-husband’s very sick father, whom also happens to be the owner of the plantation. He leaves her to the farm – to oversee its day-to-day responsibilities. He does not die from this illness but relaxes in the house taking baths and walking around the property in a robe. His entrustment to Maria is at first seen as a kind of familial right-of-passage but it quickly becomes a trap. The land makes Maria mad with blind responsibility and pride. To André, her ex-husband played by Christopher Lambert, the risk of staying is clearly not worth it. To Maria, she is proving her courage by ignoring the chaos around her and staying loyal to the land.

Then there is Manuel – the son of Maria and Andre whose story begins in a state of complacency. He seems content with spending all day asleep until Maria forces him out of the house. In a flashback, the mayor tells Maria that Manuel is “half-baked” and “unfinished.” I take this to mean that in light of his (possibly) turbulent upbringing, he is not a person who is fully formed yet – he does not yet know who he is. It is in this malleable state that Manuel enters the outside world of rebellion and violence. His tenuous condition causes him to undergo a shocking transformation when faced with the mayhem of their surroundings. Manuel is insane in a way that is external and obvious. His journey from ignorance to forced involvement mirrors Maria’s. Maria is insane in a way that is internal and subtle – she sees herself as courageous even as the logic of her opposition dissolves.

The war in White Material is one that is in disarray – there are no clear borders, lines in the sand, or objectives. It is a war without leadership – the leader of the rebels, the mythic “boxer,” is injured and in hiding. The lack of direction is causing the rebels, mostly children, to turn on each other abandoning any humanity or reason for the ecstasy of power.

Denis does not let us out of the action. The camera seems an active participant of everything that happens on screen. The film opens with nationalists investigating a building that has been raided and burned. There is no light except a single flashlight coming from the point of view of the camera (us). From the first frame we are participating, investigating, searching. Throughout White Material, Denis keeps us involved by jumbling the narrative structure – forcing us to piece together the time and location of every scene.

This is a film that I will return to many times: It is complex allegory in the guise of simple political drama. Aided by the music of Denis’ frequent collaborators, Tindersticks, the film is poetic and haunting. This is the work of one of world cinema’s finest living directors – her ever-moving camera immerses the audience in the internal and external conflicts of the characters. Claire Denis does not offer easy answers but provides a relevant and universal situation that will leave the viewer pondering for days. The question at the heart of the film is “Why does she insist on staying?” At one point a character asks her point blank why she doesn’t return to France. She argues that she couldn’t show courage in France – she would become too comfortable. She sees her presence in Africa as courageous, perhaps even heroic. The rebels see her as nothing more than white material – something foreign, inauthentic, culturally destructive.

**reposted from my blog (themastershot.worpress.com)

Cinema has rarely treated colonialism with an objective eye. Instant disdain has been nothing short of what’s been expected in a society hellbent on correcting wrongs of the past by hurting the present and future. Everything from affirmative action in the United States to the black empowerment movement in South Africa has set us up for further clashes without actually understanding the roots of the troubles. Even the origins of something as ever-present as Islamic terrorism remain oblivious to much of society, but you can’t always blame them for it. The job of the mass media is to enrich and educate the lives of those who come home from a hard day’s work, but sensationalism has taken precedence in lieu of rational discourse.

So, where do we go from here? While PBS may be on its last legs, technological ease has paved the way for well-spirited blogs and open-minded films like White Material. Unlike the foundation of liberal guilt that pervaded Hotel Rwanda, Denis makes no apologies for what the white man has done to Africa. She accepts it as fact, but digs deeper into the mindset of those who stay behind when the proverbial revolution happens. How does one treat those who were born into colonial society? Do we look with contempt the second or third-generation offspring who’ve always considered the African soil their home?

White Material is rich with doubt: Will there be a tomorrow? Will we survive even if there is? Will we be wanted? It is Denis’ elegy to colonialism and represents the darkest corners of The African Queen. Isabelle Huppert is magnificent as Maria Vial, a woman trying to keep her coffee plantation functioning while the world around her falls apart. The enemies are both within and without, with additional tension provided by Maria’s disillusioned son (played by Nicolas Duvauchelle in one of the best supporting performances of 2010). This is a film that promotes understanding of a dying world, one that we’ve already been told is very, very bad. But not all people, even when part of a terrible injustice, are evil. Sometimes circumstance just kills.

Originally posted in Life as Fiction.

Oh the syncopated web we weave. And while that phrase has nothing to do with this film, it was fun and pretty to write. Kind of like the whim that these white, French aristocrats have when deciding to go down to Africa to start a coffee plantation. Fun! Pretty! We’ll be one with the natives! Except when we hire them to be our slaves!

Oh those silly Africans. Always messing up white colonials dreams with their inconvenient coup d’éta’s, mass genocide and child soldiers. Ugly. Unsightly. Lets sweep it under the rug, while our coffee plantation goes up in flames and we are left holding onto the tufts of blond fuzz that was our child’s hair. The mindset of Isabelle Huppert’s character, Maria, is thusly set into ribbons and rows of control, denial and dependence.

Huppert is mesmerizing as always in this role, and single-handedly saves this film from being a condescending portrayal of something already revisited a million times. Claire Denis’s script and story line unfurl in a non-linear haze filled manner and honestly by the time the ending comes around you are a little annoyed by something missing. Something. Possibly lack of cohessive character build-up. Instead of shock the ending stumbles and you keep trying to figure out what was lost in the fire.

Worth a see, but overrated as a whole.

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