Clare Denis is no stranger to setting her films in Africa and in White Material it is there we visit. In an unnamed nation, a woman walks along a dirt track trying to get a lift before eventually succeeding and as she rests we get taken back earlier to when see how she came to this point. The woman Maria is a white woman is a African country on the brink, despite warnings from those around her, as well as the French Army, desperation makes her seek out a way to finish the coffee crop on her plantation despite the ever increasing risks and threats towards the whites.
As her separated husband makes a deal to sell the plantation, her workers up and leave fearful of war, but she manages to hire new staff to try and complete the task. Encouraging her teenage son to join in, he reluctantly does so only to have a horrid encounter with two young armed children, an event which leaves him desperate and altered and he goes of the rails. Maria meanwhile risks further harm by sheltering a wounded rebel leader., as the situation around her becomes more violent and dire.
Denis has crafted a very good film here, one that from the outset has a sense of tension, foreboding, of the unknown and that menace is around every corner. The lush tropical surrounds stand side by side with the violence and bloodshed or innocents murdered and others fleeing for their lives. Isabelle Huppert is superb as the defiant but embattled Maria, who seemingly refuses to accept what is happening, as she states, 'things have been the same for months', self denial towards a worsening situation.
The film highlights the horror of conflict, that it effects everyone, no matter what side you choose and that in some countries conflict sees no boundaries with age as we see children and young woman brandishing guns and machetes. The film pays some attention to this and the absurdity of children fighting; we see the children handle guns like experts and shoot dead innocence before gorging on sweets and sleeping the day away before they themselves succumb to the horrors of war.
It is a thought provoking film one that s it progresses becomes more and more startling in it's depiction of war and the outcome is shocking and tragic to say the least. Powerful stuff.
As her separated husband makes a deal to sell the plantation, her workers up and leave fearful of war, but she manages to hire new staff to try and complete the task. Encouraging her teenage son to join in, he reluctantly does so only to have a horrid encounter with two young armed children, an event which leaves him desperate and altered and he goes of the rails. Maria meanwhile risks further harm by sheltering a wounded rebel leader., as the situation around her becomes more violent and dire.
Denis has crafted a very good film here, one that from the outset has a sense of tension, foreboding, of the unknown and that menace is around every corner. The lush tropical surrounds stand side by side with the violence and bloodshed or innocents murdered and others fleeing for their lives. Isabelle Huppert is superb as the defiant but embattled Maria, who seemingly refuses to accept what is happening, as she states, 'things have been the same for months', self denial towards a worsening situation.
The film highlights the horror of conflict, that it effects everyone, no matter what side you choose and that in some countries conflict sees no boundaries with age as we see children and young woman brandishing guns and machetes. The film pays some attention to this and the absurdity of children fighting; we see the children handle guns like experts and shoot dead innocence before gorging on sweets and sleeping the day away before they themselves succumb to the horrors of war.
It is a thought provoking film one that s it progresses becomes more and more startling in it's depiction of war and the outcome is shocking and tragic to say the least. Powerful stuff.