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White Material (2009)

Director: Claire Denis

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From Time Out Online

Reviewed at the 2009 Venice Film Festival

Isabelle Huppert must get a kick out of playing harried, standoffish landowners in films about France’s chequered colonial heritage, as it was only last year that she did exactly that in Rithy Panh’s ‘The Sea Wall’, which also premiered at Venice. Yet, in ‘White Material’, the latest spellbinding work from Claire Denis – a director who, on the evidence of this and last year's wonderful '35 Shots of Rum', just doesn’t seem to be able to drop the ball – her brittle central turn adds a layer of duplicity and suspense to this poignant exploration of the socio-political intricacies of an unnamed African state in the midst of a violent military coup.

Fans of the director’s melancholic and insidiously bitter debut, ‘Chocolat’, will notice parallels with that film, not least the flashback structure, but also the strong sense of injustice as bourgeois white ex-pats blithely exploit local labourers to amass lucre, totally blind to the widespread suffering occurring just outside the gates of their luxurious enclosure. And again, Denis’s free-flowing direction (along with the cinematography of Yves Cape) manages to simultaneously encapsulate both the breathtaking beauty and abject horror of the African cultural landscape.

Maria (Huppert) is the owner of the Café Vial coffee plantation, and with only one week remaining to harvest her latest crop, army helicopters are flying low and petrified grunts are suggesting she cut her loses and make for the borders to avoid fallout from the violent insurrection. Her staff have left, her ex-husband (Christopher Lambert – yes, that one) has made a deal with the local mayor to facilitate an easy escape and her jaded, uncommunicative son and incapacitated father are just adding to her problems. Yet Maria stubbornly ploughs forward, paying for new workers to endanger their lives to harvest coffee beans for her.

As usual, Denis is more attracted to the philosophical ramifications that lie behind the story, and as such, the motivations behind the key protagonist remain open to interpretation throughout. Though he has a relatively small role in the film, Isaach de Bankole plays a wounded rebel leader known as The Boxer who Maria turns a blind eye to when he is discovered hiding in one of her out-houses. The vital question that hangs over the film as both the rebels and the state troops desperately search for him is, why is she keeping him there? Does she hope that with him hidden she'll be able to achieve her quota? Or does she want to draw the enemy through her gates?

While some may argue that the story is rudimentary and there are too many supporting characters given far too little time on screen, this film has an almost universal relevance that can be transposed to any and all situations involving company owners who have meagre interest in worker welfare. Yet to simply read ‘White Material’ as a metaphor for the scourge of capitalism would be reductive, as its visual and emotional impacts are just too powerful.

Huppert, yet again, carries the film, and despite a cool reception at its Venice press screening, few would begrudge Denis the Golden Lion this year.

Author: David Jenkins 2009-09-06 17:10:47

Time Out Online Venice Film Festval 2009