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Denis returns to Afriaca -- an undefined country there -- to explore colonialism and revolution in this film that has more in common with her wonderfully mysterious 'The Intruder' (2004) -- though it's less successful -- than with her warm-hearted family story '35 Shots of Rum' (2008).

At the center here too is a family, the Vials, French colonial types who own a coffee plantation, or did own one. And at the center of this family is the scrawny, determined Maria (Isabelle Huppert), as brave as she is heedless. Everything is falling apart, but she simply won't give up -- or even acknowledge that there's any danger.

But here, as in various African countries, government forces are at war with rebels and schools are closing and children are turning into dangerous, thrill-seeking warriors popping pills and wielding pistols, machetes, and spears. The plantation workers are fleeing just at harvest time, and the Vials themselves are warned by a helicopter flying overhead that it's time to get out. The rebel army's missing leader, known as "the boxer" (Isaach de Bankolé of Jarmusch's 'Limits of Control' and of Denis' original Africa film 'Chocolat') has reappeared, wounded, hiding out in the plantation, which makes it a double target.

The family itself seems to have fallen apart some time ago, though as usual in Denis' films, the relationships and family histories aren't meant to be immediately clear. Maria's ex-father-in-law, Henri (Michel Subor of 'The Intruder') is mysteriously sick; he seems to know more than the others, but he is powerless; he reigns over nothing -- except that he is the real owner of the plantation. Maria's ex-husband André Vial (Christophe Lambert) has a son by a new young black wife, Lucie (Adele Ado). Maria and André have an older son, Manuel (Nicolas Duvauchelle), who has turned into a sluggard, and seems deranged. Later after being attacked and humiliated by two black boys (they rob him naked and cut off a lock of his blond hair), he shaves off the rest of his hair, takes a rifle and his mother's motorcycle, and becomes a wild rebel himself.

Meanwhile André has made a deal with the wily black mayor (William Nadylam), presumably to get money to escape, and the mayor now owns the plantation, and feels whatever happens he'll be okay because he has his own private army. All the while there are messages over the radio broadcast by a disc jockey playing reggae and saying the rebels are coming. But soldiers in gray uniforms are coming to kill almost everyone, including some of the child soldiers, and some members of the Vial family after Manuel goes over to the rebels.

None of this matters as much as the fact that Maria, a kind of foolish Mother Courage or life force, fights on till the end, even when the new workers she recruits flee, a sheep's head turns up in the coffee beans signifying doom, the power is cut, the gasoline runs out, and family members disappear or are killed. Maria repeatedly says she can't go back to France; to a young black woman she admits it's probably because she can't give up her power. She also says in France she couldn't "show courage." In short, she's useless anywhere else. She has contempt for the fleeing French soldiers, calling them "dirty whites" that never belonged here. This is her element. Unfortunately, her element is disintegrating. "White material," in English, is a phrase used variously by the African locals to denote possessions of the whites and the whites themselves. A child rebel comments that "white material" isn't going to be around much any more.

Denis is good at creating a sense of the many-layered chaos. Her mise-en-scène is vivid and atmospheric. Yet something isn't quite right. The casting feels wrong. Butor is a relic from a better movie, Lambert is unnecessary. Duvauchelle, who has played rebels but determined, disciplined ones, seems out of place with all his tattoos as a youth born in Africa and a good-for-nothing. Nobody can play an indomitable woman better than Isabelle Huppert, but for that very reason it would have been a welcome surprise to see a completely new face in this role.

As 'Variety' reviewer Jay Weissberg notes, the images by the new d.p. Yves Cape are less rich than those of Denis regular Agnes Godard, but may suit the violent action situation better, and the delicately used music is wonderfully atmospheric. This is definitely a Claire Denis film. What's unique is its sense of foreboding. You feel Maria is somehow bulletproof and yet you also fear that at any moment she'll walk into something she can't get out of.

Still, after the wonderful warmth of '35 Shots of Rum' and the haunting complexity of 'The Intruder,' there doesn't seem as much to ponder or to care about here, and even if this is a fresh treatment of familiar material, it's a bit of a disappointment. From another director it might seem impressive and exceptionally original, but from Denis, is seems to lack something, some more intense scenes, some grand finale.

Shown as part of the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center 2009.

White Material is a film about a coffee plantation in an unnamed African country (shot in Cameroon). Maria Vial (Isabelle Huppert) runs the place for her father Henri (Michel Subor). She has a layabout son called Manuel (Nicolas Duvauchelle) and a weak-willed husband André (played by Christopher Lambert of Highlander fame).

The French army is withdrawing and the country is fractured into regular army, rebels, and newly-formed mad-dog local militias out for rape and pillage, sprung from the ground once law and order dissolves, like Ray Harryhausen's skeleton warriors of the dragon's teeth (Jason and the Argonauts).

It's time to banish the White Material, that is white folk and the trappings of white living. Maria doesn't want to know though and stays on stubbornly trying to process her coffee crop.

The film is quite pretty and captures the feel of Africa on the ground, of the isolation and the wild beauty, but also the extreme lurking danger. Denis has roots in Africa and so manages a lot of authenticity. The dialogue is occasionally awesome, soliloquies in which Maria curses whites and talks about Africa in relation to Europe particularly stand out.

Unfortunately I think there are weak elements, Lambert isn't good enough and his character isn't even necessary (which goes for Henri too), Maria does something brutal and inexplicable at the end (in true clichéd Huppert style), and the film looks like it took a severe amount of cutting as there are plot threads that are barely picked up. The film has the feel of an overly condensed epic. The biggest problem though maybe the narrative structure, where the end occurs at the beginning, which in all frankness, and with due respect to a director who has entertained me with great films more than once, comes off as amateurish.

As usual the Tindersticks provide a wonderful soundtrack for Denis, so important for an auteur to have a proper musical collaborator, but they basically paper over the cracks.

The film is good enough if you just look at is as mesmerising anarchy, but it's not a multi-faceted Denis masterpiece. Isaach De Bankolé is underused as Le Boxeur, the rebel hero general, he's a symbol of a strong moral Africa, gut-shot and dying alone. This character lingers in the memory.

excerpt, more at my location - In Claire Denis' White Material (shot in Cameroon), themes of colonialism and rebellion collide within the context of an unspecified African nation. The film is, at times, deeply disturbing and shocking, and marks Denis' filmmaking return to Africa (after previously studying themes of African colonialism in films such as her 1988 directorial debut Chocolat) whilst drawing on real-life experiences of growing up in the continent.

White Material is a worthwhile and thought-provoking film, even if it does not quite reach the full sum of its parts. Isabelle Huppert is intriguingly complex and engaging in the central performance, with Nicholas Duvauchelle also shining in a difficult role as a young man descending into darkness.

In French colonial Africa, Maria Vial (Isabelle Huppert) is struggling to finish the coffee bean harvest. The rebels are approaching. French forces are leaving. Local have turned to banditry and her workers have mostly abandoned her. The African mayor bullies André Vial (Christopher Lambert) to get his father to sell the plantation. Maria has their white son Manuel and André has his half-African son Jose. Maria stubbornly refuses to leave the harvest even after Manuel is stripped naked by a couple of boys. Manuel starts to deteriorate mentally. Maria discovers wounded rebel fighter Le Boxeur in her barn.

Isabelle Huppert embodies a fierce interior and stubbornness. The family's varying reaction to their situation can be mind-boggling. There is real tension but also frustration with Maria. These are maddening characters in a maddening world.

The setting for the film is a West African, French-speaking country riven by civil unrest and fighting between the army and rebels who consist of children, many orphaned. The rebels' icon and unofficial leader is a former soldier known as The Boxer (a cameo from Isaach de Bankole). Directed by Clare Denis she presents the country's unravelling situation and uses a non-linear narrative to loop back and forth within the 48-hour period that is the story's time frame.

Amidst the mayhem we are slowly introduced to the owners of a coffee plantation, who are a white family of French origins: Maria Vial (Huppert), her ex-husband Andre (Lambert), their son Manuel and his grandfather Bernard. Living with the family is Andre's second wife/partner Lucie and their son Jose. At the point we meet the family they are 5 days from coffee harvest and their workers are fleeing the plantation afraid for their lives. They leave to return home because 'coffee is just coffee and not worth dying for'. Maria does not feel the same way and recruits some replacement workers to ensure a successful harvest. Meanwhile Andre, who shares the workers' fears, is plotting the family's escape which means selling the plantation to the local mayor who will ensure their safe passage out of the country. This is kept from Maria who has vowed never to leave.

As events unfold it is obvious to everyone around Maria that the situation is becoming less stable and increasingly precarious. She refuses to see or acknowledge this. Interspersed throughout we hear a DJ allied to the rebels, used as a sort of narrator, playing reggae and making pronouncements against the existing government and white people, who are the 'white material' of the title.

The film's narrative and characters make it difficult for the viewer to apprehend what is happening immediately and/or to like/relate to the characters easily. This is part of its success: the situation and people we are presented with are complex. Although of French origin and white we learn that Bernard and Manuel were both born in the country making them citizens. Maria has left France and never wants to return; she herself despises the white French people ('these dirty whites ... they don't deserve this beautiful land') and clearly does not perceive herself to be one even though the rebels and army see her as one such 'dirty white' who makes the country 'filthy'. Throughout is woven the theme of where is home and what it means to feel you belong and rooted in a situation where others label you an outsider.

Maria is a tough fighter but lacks sensitivity and does not seem to realise, or wish to see, how she is perceived. We witness the tragic consequences of this to her, her family and the people who work with her as the film works to its conclusion.

The film is beautifully shot with an atmospheric soundtrack provided by Tindersticks. The colours, the heat, the expanse are well evoked and make you realise why Maria loves it so she is prepared to risk her life and those close to her. There is spare use of dialogue and Huppert excels at the role of Maria, a difficult woman of few words. This is the sort of film that benefits from more than one watch as Denis packs in characters and events all of which add to the texture of the film and its politics.

It is indeed Africa and a violent one truly depicted here. In a former French colony a white woman runs a coffee plantation in a zone ravaged by the fight between the army and rebels. A courageous woman who fights against everything and everybody (Isabelle Huppert),for besides the problems of the plantation she has got family problems with her ex-husband and a half-mad son. A movie that is directed in realistic style as almost documentar although not dimming the dramatic freature of the story. Also a real document of the relationship between Africans and Europeans. A movie worth to be seen though not exactly a masterpiece as far as a few behaviours are not utterly shown nor explained.

Chaos reigns in some nameless, war-torn African nation. A rag-tag guerrilla group searches the jungle wilderness for its charismatic wounded leader The Boxer, while some equally ruthless government soldiers try to hunt him down. As the signs of war multiply, The Boxer hides in some outbuildings at the Vial coffee plantation which has been abandoned by its workers. Fear surrounds the decaying French-owned estate where Maria Vial resides with her ex-husband Andre, their dissolute half-mad son and her hated father-in-law. Maria ignores warnings to leave and obsesses over the unharvested coffee crop, while Andre conspires with the sinister local mayor to hand over the property in exchange for safe passage out of the country.

Director Denis makes no attempt to explore her characters, their relationships or the stories behind their present condition, apparently satisfied with documenting the surface symptoms of communal meltdown. She focuses on Maria, but reveals nothing about her heroine except for the foolish fixation on the neglected coffee beans. All the other characters possess similarly one-dimensional personalities - the Europeans are reduced to stereotypes of colonial decadence, while the Africans are portrayed as bloodthirsty and venal. When the film culminates in capricious madness it's impossible to care about anyone's fate, because it's obvious they are symbols existing in a metaphor. Denis doesn't appear to care either.

In an unknown African country, a civil war is going on. This French woman refuses to escape. She wants to save the coffee.

There's movie horror and there's real horror and this comes close to the later one. But it doesn't escalate, it's latent all the time, until the final eruption.

What's more important is however what's on trial here. It's not colonialism or greed or prejudices. More than so, it's The White Mother, who is rebelled, not only by her son, but by being determined, by not giving up, by not fearing. The key line is when she says to her son: -"I will never let you go". Interesting.

One of the important works of director Claire Denis. The film is important for two major themes it explores: one, the relationships of the colonial expats and the African natives and the resulting social and economic inequality; and two, the internal politics, corruption, and lack of respect for human life when one has gun power.

The film is one of the better performances of the lead actress Isabelle Huppert, who apparently approached the director for an opportunity to work with her. Denis works with regular actors and crew. Among the cast, Michel Subor (the owner of the coffee plantation) and Isaach de Bankole (the injured 'Boxer', a name referenced on the matchboxes he uses in Jarmusch's film 'The Limits of Control') come to mind. The crew includes music composer Stuart Staples and his band Tindersticks (and Ms Denis has a great ear for music that elevates her works). What constitutes the White Material? The white colonial expatriates born and living in Africa is one way to look at it. Another would be their possessions--cigarette lighters, clothes, masks (opening sequences), immovable property, mixed-race progeny they create, indoor table decorations that young native, blonde hair, blue eyes (all of which are stated in the script).

Just an awful and unengaging French movie about murderous civil war in a backward African country, about a coffee plantation owner's wife trying to get her coffee crop harvested in the middle of a violent civil war(what!!!) that has severely disrupted everything and put everyone's life in danger, and especially her family. What resulted is a confused mess of a critic's darling film that regular viewers will hate or not see, which is more likely, as always. This film will do no business in America, and surely will do poorly even in France. It is that bad and worse than many amateur's cheap docu-dramas.

Chopped up and haphazard editing("this is art")led to poor story continuity, flashbacks and flash forwards were thrown in without any sense of story progression or sense, and phone-it-in, very bland "acting" by the lead, played by Isabelle Huppert, made this the worst, should-have-been-good movie I have paid to see in ages, and I dearly love French films. The only thing good about it was the cinematography, and that was even much less than it should have been for a film made in wondrously beautiful Africa.

Isabelle Huppert showed an emotional range here of A to B and no more. No matter what was happening, bad to worse to worst, her face showed no emotion and was as relaxed as if she were strolling along the Seine, and her calm voice also reflected no emotion no matter that her world was crumbling around her. Plus, the oblique and foggy acting technique of the entire cast, obviously done at the filmmaker's "creative" insistence, did little to clarify or explain anything before or during the crisis they were in, and as was probably said at the time, "Hey, this is an art film! Anything goes." A good story well told instead would have been far superior and actually meant something.

See this failure of a film if you want to see a clueless French woman constantly wondering around rural Africa with a confused look on her face while making some of the most stupid decisions one could make with her life on the line, and that of her family. And the chopped off, abrupt ending left us smack in the middle of the mess and led nowhere. What a disappointment this film was in every way possible. It could have really said something of interest, instead of boring us to death. We can get that for free.

A story of a distressed woman willing to die and sacrifice her own family rather than giving up some acres of land somewhere in the middle of nowhere merely to prove (to none) that she is not afraid.

Isabelle Huppert provides as always an excellent and charming neurotic character. Her character is brave and determined but the whole objective of her determination makes no sense at all.

Overall, the script is pretty poor. It is not certain if the movie wants to talk about female neurosis, ignorant expatriates behavior, social revolution, oppressed against colonizers, black and white or simply tell the story of how someone can get blind by her own ego.

Nice photography of landscapes, some minutes of enjoying to see Huppert acting and absolutely nothing more.

How does a country descend into civil war, and from there, to genocidal slaughter? Some of the most terrible stories of recent years come from Africa (poverty being one obvious driver) and this film, like the more famous 'Hotel Rwanda', is set in such terrain. I personally found the latter film unsatisfactory, as it told a story of basically good people attacked, in effect, by mindless zombies: 'White Material' is better at giving a portrait of life in a society where the pillars of order are crumbling, and thereby offers a more convincing narrative as to how the bonds of normal human decency might break. It also offers an interesting perspective by looking at events from the viewpoint of white farmers: not evil per se (although the film doesn't make them particularly sympathetic), but owning too many resources in a land that sees that claim to title as rooted in the colonial past. What doesn't work, for me, is the particular plot: while the mood of the characters, and of their world, is well created, the details of the situation remain unclear: who does what to who, and why, remains frustratingly enigmatic. Isabelle Huppert is good in the lead role; but the absence of a black African in a role of matching prominence is arguably a weakness, the murder goes on and the explanation is never quite forthcoming. Perhaps that's asking too much of a mere movie: if the explanation was obvious, the world would not have to endure so much pointless suffering.

«Many things are to be found in Mama's and Papa's homes. But go about it gently. Everyone is entitled to his share. And don't ever forget: What fate has in store for us one can take away. Beware of impostors, smooth talkers, and thieves. As for the white material, the party's over. No more cocktails on shaded verandas while we sweat water and blood. They're getting out and they're right to run scared. Our rulers are already trembling, their suitcases stuffed with booty they amassed while you starved.»

A mysterious tale about a woman and how she dealt with a civil war between some young rebels and the so-called patriots in her "own" soil. She's white, French and lives in an enigmatic unnamed African country, set in a postcolonial time. Chaos, fight and destruction reign, as she desperately tries to take further the wish to harvest her coffee plantation, almost blind to the consequences regarding that same wish, something even the poor and innocent workers, striving for food and money, can acknowledge - we don't quite know if that's what she's really struggling for, but we assume it as a superficial remark about her character. Isabelle Huppert, one of the all-time finest, doesn't give us that kind of powerhouse performance like only she can. Instead, she takes a shyer path, giving Maria - the name of her character - a great sense of persuasion, always hiding her true colors from people around her. In other words, her performance is quite remarkable and helps the movie to grow in a natural humanism (even if we don't want to admit it, she's a true heroine with good intentions that simply aren't strong enough to prevail). Her best and most merciless scene comes near the end and it's superb. Denis, of course, directs with an unparalleled soft but cruel style, working with our brains instead of our eyes (and her visuals are amazing). White Material - the name echoes what African child soldiers called to the personal belongings of their "superior ones" - is food for thought, if we consider the crisis that surrounded so many African countries and the revenges, full of death, taken after years and years of oppression. With a story that essentially explores the roots of evil, it's a movie that rewards every viewer and offers a lot, especially if you're a concerned individual.

I read through a couple reviews before I watched "White Material" and noticed that they pointed out that the film never says where the action is taking place--other than it's in a French-speaking part of Africa where they grow coffee. I thought it could be the Ivory Coast, Burundi or Cameroon--and when I checked IMDb, I saw it was filmed in Cameroon--though whether this is where the film is supposed to be set is uncertain. My bet is that it's just supposed to be a metaphor for ALL of colonial Africa and the drive over the last 60 years to take back the continent for Africans--so the language could have been English and the plantation could have been growing any one of a number of crops. In hindsight, I think the movie probably should have identified the country, as without a clear context, the film is a bit vague and difficult for many viewers.

As far as the film goes, it's like a snippet of film with little context. Who is fighting who, what has occurred that set the stage for the movie and who the people are in the film really isn't important for the filmmakers. This makes it difficult to connect with the people. Should you admire or hate the leading lady (Isabel Huppert)? Is her obsession with saving her plantation and bringing in the next coffee crop justified or not? What's going on with her family--the ex-husband, the son, the father, etc.? The film really doesn't have a lot to say about any of this. And, like not knowing where the film takes place, is something that many viewers may feel frustrated about as connecting with the people is very difficult.

None of this is to say that this is a bad film--but it does prevent it from being an exceptional film. It's interesting but could have said a lot more. It is a very, very quiet and slow film--which is interesting considering the country is racked with violence and chaos. Because of this, I really felt the film was limiting its appeal--which is a shame, as colonialism and its aftermath are really important topics for movies but are seldom discussed. Plus, while repulsive, the violence and seeing child soldiers is, unfortunately, not that uncommon on the continent and worth discussing.

By the way, although it's not gratuitous or salacious, the film has a bit of full-frontal male nudity. Also, not surprisingly, late in the film there is some pretty horrific violence. Just be forewarned.

Claire Denis' works are always representative and significant, with an intensity and realism, raw, almost raw, the two previous ones with the same characteristics, but it was here, that I identified myself the most, she entered a patriarchal world, in the midst of civil war , and the unconditional love of a mother, photography and perfect characterizations, intense performances, script written between the lines, strong and captivating...

Nobody's asking for constant tales of heroism and villainy. No one wants the same, tired narrative frameworks applied to a piece over and over. Nobody wants a film ticking the boxes that make up a form detailing genre demand every time. Alas, Claire Denis' White Material is so lacking in any sort of punch or concrete reason to give a damn about what's happening that by the end, you end up longing for the pre-sound days of handle-bar moustached sporting men tying young women to railway lines minutes before the hero of the hour rides on in and takes care of business. Here is one of those 'clever' films that depicts a Civil War, as well as all the terror and tension that comes with it, but would like you to think that it's actually secondary to all the "nothingness" going on in the foreground. You know the kind of approach I'm talking about, that sort that should one depict such an understated approach to an event in favour of just nothing, it's somehow "smart". The truth arrives much more crudely than we'd have liked, a film devoid of any sort of intelligence nor reason to even exist; a film without any of the threat that comes with good war films, a film without a grain of interest in its depiction of people too entrenched in their processes to act accordingly – a film without a reason to care; a detached film with very little to get excited about.

Unfolding in an unspecified Black African country fluent in French, the film covers a woman named Maria (Huppert) desperate to unload a coffee bean harvest in spite of the fact the elements, in the form of machine gun wielding child soldiers, are rapidly seeping their way across the country. The central idea isn't difficult to see, this notion revolving around the short sightedness of Capitalists too imbued in their own methods and getting a product out to think about themselves and those around them. The premise, equally resounding on paper, will see Huppert's character traipse around a desolate, Spaghetti Western-inflected terrain rife with war and suffering attempting to find people qualified to reap her harvest. Later on, she must maintain relationships with her former husband and son as well as care for an opposition soldier she's taken into the farm's care. The reality is, again, a piece as dry as the climate depicted within; a film as plodding in its depiction of plants being picked, grounded and plantation life in general being ploughed on with as anything else you could name. At least those Italian neo-realist films which were born out of the Second World War had an urgency to them, had something striking about them in spite similar grounds upon which to revolve around "nothing".

Things start ominously, beginning with the militarian threat in the form of a group of soldiers wading through a series of homes housed now only by the dead within the dark of the night. Things move to the past tense and we witness Maria hide from a truck full of these soldiers as it trundles down the dirt road, wary of the threat but more wary of the threat posed at her coffee beans back home: a fine crop which will be all but ruined because she cannot find the hands to do the required job out of this insurgency. Back at the plantation, frenzied requests from that of Maria's relatives fall on deaf ears. She, in spite of being white, sees herself as indigenous to this Black African nation and doesn't see as to why she should leave.

Her son, Manuel (Duvauchelle), makes for the one character who changes the most as the film progresses; leaving his shy, socially distanced existence for sake of shaving his head of hair; grabbing an assault shotgun and going out on the hunt for blacks after they humiliate him out in the fields during this war. Here is a depiction of something; a character study of someone beginning as one thing, having this outside agency in the form of the war come and affect him, before depicting this person going out and getting involved. Did the young man become enveloped by a hatred of Black Africans? Was it the potentially violent encounter that changed him, enrapturing him with a desire to actually taste violence? Is he destined to live out his days as a Neo-Nazi as of now?

The film, in fact, gets things so wrong so often that prior to his transformation it will need to induce drama from the meekest of places when it has Manuel naively venture out of the plantation in order to encounter these Blacks, much in the same way an English language 'slasher' film will perpetrate such things for shrill thrills. Where that aggrieves us there, we should not allow an auteur produced French language piece to fool us here? I read that Denis spent some time in Black French Africa during her childhood and people both speak and write of how film making can be a very personalised thing. If such a thing is true, where is the personalised stamp on her piece of work here? Where is the capturing of life in Black Africa from a white person's perspective, and why is it that such a person feels the need to depict life for such a woman in such a place during a time of war? Was there not enough drama in the first place? As far as French dramas go, White Material is a confused and wholly uninvolving effort.

The ambiguous objective history evolved into the immediate slaughter, in which witness found no executioners or saviors. The outbreak of the film is focused on a moment, when everything is laid out in a logical. The quest for reason tends to ignore humanity itself. Therefore, the movie portrays the firmness itself in the ambiguous background. It was the unsolved curse between the blood and the earth, and the perfect performance of Isabelle Huppert.

I lived in Africa for nearly 25 years and, whenever things went south no matter whether with trivial or major consequences , a common response was "AWA," Africa Wins Again.

Usually the reason some undertaking failed was attributable to human intransigence and stubborn refusal to be accommodative, but the results were similar to those experienced when a plantation or garden was left untended. Africa reclaimed the situation (or the plantation) and things quickly returned to it more "natural" state, as if any traces of human intervention had been fully erased.

This story has to do with a multi-generational French family living in an unnamed African country, apparently for quite a long time, as a revolution is unfolding that is both anti-government and anti-exploitation-by-colonial-types like the family.

Aside from the utter despair for all parties concerned, it's a little difficult to see what the point of the movie was. Maybe if we had seen a little of the main characters before the revolution, their slide into hopeless refugees-to-reality would have been more telling. As it is, from the start nearly everyone seems to have already found his or her own way to deny what's going on and the viewer is more likely to feel apathy for everyone rather than any sympathy.

The "star" is a woman who apparently never owned a comb or hair brush or any clothes appropriate to her daily activities. Aside from a pile of greasy, stringy, uncontrollable, overly long hair, she is a pretty one-dimensional, forgettable character. In addition to being in total denial about what's going on about her, she also seems unaware that her "school boy" son has gone completely over the wall. At least he has the sense to shave his head, something I kept wishing the woman would do.

If the objective was to show how Africa will always win again and reduce anyone and everything to the lowest common denominator (presumably taking the racist view that whites will be reduced to the lowest level ... that of native Africans ... if they let their guard down), then it failed remarkably. Just about everyone in the movie seemed to be rather pathetic from the start. It may be true that "Things Fall Apart," but for some things/people, that was a pretty small change.

A white plantation family living in somewhere French Africa tries their luck in a civil war stricken area. With their coffee still in need of harvesting, the matriarch of the family tries to fool another set of workers to finish the harvest before maybe leaving for good. But as expected, the plan goes astray with both the government and rebels having other plans.

A more direct film about colonial relations, White Materials tackle directly the unchecked privilege that white colonizers believe they had over the people of their colony. It is already famous that Denis lived most of her childhood in Africa and this film pretty much shows that. It is ruthless in showing how out of depth the Huppert's family are and how they just act as if their actions is unnoticed to their workers or the government. Its tight and hits all the marks to show just enough how insane the family is.

Huppert again is masterful. It is more direct material so it was not really a shock for me that she did stunning. She just know how act in different levels AND understood how she should come off. Such a brilliant actress that deserves all the praise given to her.

Highly recommended.