Less elliptical and more firmly rooted in plot and structure, Claire Denis’ White Material is still an impressive piece of filmmaking and a welcome addition to her film canon
Claire Denis / France / 2009 / 100m
Tackling a story about an unspecified war torn African country and its people, it might seem like Claire Denis is treading unusual terrain. Her previous films include Beau travail, L’intrus, and 35 Shots of Rum, and are clear cut masterworks of international cinema. They are ethereal and provocative, and have staying power. White Material, on the other hand, has a story that is far more rigid than her other films. Its aesthetic composition is nothing short of a usual Denis affair, beautifully evocative images that transcend time in a way. She effectively conveys the breakdown of Maria, a divorced French woman who doesn’t even know she’s experiencing one, through scenes showing the rebellion of her own son and parallels between herself and a conflicted, crumbling postcolonial region.
Maria, played by the stunning but rough-looking Isabelle Huppert, works at her family’s coffee plantation. She is seen actively engaging in the harvesting of coffee beans. Denis shows this with intense scrutiny, and creates a sort of rhythmic thrill in the process. Her ex-husband is scheming behind her back to sell the plantation, as he and many others from the area deem it unsafe to continue living in the area. Her father-in-law lounges around the house in kimonos, and her son stays in bed all day. The local army is battling with the rebels, who include children of both sexes, while the French military urges everyone to evacuate. Maria decides not to follow these orders, and when her workers leave she goes and finds more. She is headstrong, but to the point where it could cost her and her family their lives.
Not shot by Denis regular Agnès Godard, Yves Cape takes over and cleverly uses handheld cameras to create a fluidity within turmoil. When a rebel known as “the Boxer” is found dead in one of the first scene of the film, Cape composes the image so that the only light the viewer can see is the frantic light of a flashlight. The film is told through a series of flashbacks that tie together the opening scenes of the Boxer being found and a white male stuck in a burning house while militia watches him slowly die. There a particularly unsettling scene in which one character is killed by someone who wouldn’t seem to have any motivation to kill them. But that’s not the point, to question the motivation of the character is of no concern to Denis, as she stated during the Q&A. Although White Material is conventional, it is Denis’ most exhilarating film to date – and her visual sense doesn’t seem like it’ll be weakening anytime soon.
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