Film Reviews

White Material

• Rating:
• Director:
• Starring: Isabelle Huppert
• Details: France/Cameroon / 106mins (15A).

Claire Denis' films have a tendency to frustrate - with languid pacing and long monotonous shots, her films generally consist of meandering stories where nothing happens very slowly - but White Material promised a changed of pace. A drama set in war-torn region of Africa, could this see Denis touching on something that borders on the mainstream? No dice. Although there's always something almost happening here, it's still the old Denis.
Maria Vial (Huppert) has ignored repeated pleas by the French army to evacuate the (unnamed African) country as they are pulling out and she will have no protection. Maria is headstrong, yes, but this isn't the sole reason she can't leave: the coffee plantation she runs with her husband (Lambert) for her sick, elderly father is a week away from harvest and she isn't ready to down tools and let it all go to ruin. Her son, the lethargic Manuel (Duvachelle), is useless and she is harbouring legendary injured soldier, The Boxer (Isaach De Bonkole), whom the rebels and the government troops, neither of whom are jazzed to have white folk around, are searching for.
A diatribe of post French colonialism, Denis' (France born, but raised in Africa) Maria embodies the white attitude, their sense of entitlement, in Africa. Maria considers herself one of the people but still remains aloof; her hoity, superior stance holds firm despite chaos breaking out around her. When speaking of other whites in Africa she calls them "pretentious, they don't deserve this beautiful land." She doesn't realise that she doesn't either - she's just a guest who isn't welcome anymore but fails to accept it. When a government soldier tells her "it's because of people like you this country is filthy," it doesn't register. Her face simply says: Not me, surely.
Denis is determined not to turn White Material into Blood Diamond or Johnny Mad Dog and to do this she employs the following tactic - every time something looks like it's about to kick off (this is a drama set during war time, remember) she cuts away. The film is filled with threat and the writer-director is as stubborn as Maria in refusing to follow through on the results of those threats - we're allowed to glimpse the consequences but not the act. It's an admirable move not to travel down the same route other films on the subject took, but why not give the audience a little something?

Review by Gavin Burke