White Material

MOVIE #1,282 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 12.15.23 𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙲𝙻𝙰𝙸𝚁𝙴 𝙳𝙴𝙽𝙸𝚂 (𝙵𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚑: [𝚍ə𝚗𝚒];) 𝙳𝙸𝚁𝙴𝙲𝚃𝙾𝚁 𝙵𝙾𝙲𝚄𝚂 I find something’s slightly amiss when Claire Denis tackles explicitly political topics such as this. On the one hand, they tend to feel like more ‘normal’ movies (a point which I’m mostly indifferent to) but on the other, they give off a sense of atonement for the colonial crimes of white people that seems too obvious. This film is still very effective as a drama, with top-notch performances by Isabelle Huppert, Christopher Lambert (Highlander) and the return of Isaach de Bankolé, reuniting with Denis for the first time since 1994’s No Fear, No Die in a small but important role here.

There's a futility in all Denis’s films but this one might be the most bluntly grim in terms of ‘what the hell are these characters thinking?!’ For there’s leaning into one’s doomed fate and then there’s bulldozing full steam towards what is certain death. And for what? Coffee? You know what nobody does in this movie? Drink coffee. And yes, that’s the point.

Also, I think I’ve just been conditioned by her narrative proclivities at this juncture of the filmography. There’s almost too much plot here and it feels jarring. There are no metaphors. “Because of people like you, this country is filthy,” a local tells Huppert at one point. The thematic and philosophical statement is so conspicuous that it’s nearly rendered moot.

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CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ MOVIE #1,281 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #1,283 ⫸

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White Material is a 2009 French drama film directed by Claire Denis and co-written with Marie NDiaye. The film stars Isabelle Huppert as Maria Vial, a struggling French coffee producer in an unnamed French-speaking African country, who decides to stay at her coffee plantation in spite of an erupting civil war. The film was well received, earning high ratings and appearing in several movie critics' top lists for 2010. It was released on September 6, 2009.