White Material (2009)

Featured Audience Ratings

• Bruce B

  
  Another great film put out by IFC films about a French women who will not give up, Isabelle Huppert plays the part of a coffee plantation owner in a African country trying to get the coffee crop in before it ruins. Trouble within the country between the Rebels and the military over… More
  Another great film put out by IFC films about a French women who will not give up, Isabelle Huppert plays the part of a coffee plantation owner in a African country trying to get the coffee crop in before it ruins. Trouble within the country between the Rebels and the military over running the country is now a prime factor that the French military has pulled out. Her number one problem is she is White (White Material as know to the Blacks), her second problem is her worthless husband. The cast of this film is that of Actors from outside the US which IFC is famous for and helps add to the overall enjoyment of this film. An outstanding film that deals with the facts of today. 4 1/2 stars

• Stella D

  
  a powerful performance by isabelle huppert and an atmosphere of palpable dread in the dark heart of post colonial africa

• Gordon A

  
  Creates a suitably menacing atmosphere around the remaining white settlers in a war ravaged african country about to implode but suffers from a slightly plodding execution.

• William D

  
  "White Material," the new film from Claire Denis starring Isabelle Huppert, is ambitious and intelligent, but it is also slack at times, inducing yawns one too many times. Ms. Denis's sense of editing is not superb here. The screenplay also doesn't dig that… More
  "White Material," the new film from Claire Denis starring Isabelle Huppert, is ambitious and intelligent, but it is also slack at times, inducing yawns one too many times. Ms. Denis's sense of editing is not superb here. The screenplay also doesn't dig that deeply into its characters. Fascinating issues are raised but in a sketchy fashion. Ms. Denis stands at some distance from her characters, seeming to look at them from afar rather than in close-up. The actors also at times seem puzzled by their characters, which can be quite annoying. "White Material" tells the story of a woman of French descent (Huppert) struggling to hold onto her coffee plantation in Africa during a time of social unrest and armed rebellion. At times, the rebellion seems driven by lingering hostility toward European colonials and the African elites that supported them. At other times, it seems propelled by a rage for vandalism with no ideology whatsoever behind it. An army of hungry orphans comes together and roams the countryside almost indiscriminately terrorizing those they encounter. A rebel leader (played by Isaach de Bankole, who also appeared in Denis's first film, "Chocolat," from 1988) gets separated from his troops and wanders through the outback alone, becoming the subject of much mythical storytelling like a latter-day Che Guevara. But he doesn't have much of a role in the film. It almost seemed that Denis wanted to give Bankole a role and threw his character together haphazardly. He appears here and there throughout the film in a rather pointless fashion. But the rebellion is not the focus of the film. Most screen time is devoted to the plantation owner (Huppert) and her family, and they are surprisingly strange. You've never seen the descendants of European colonials depicted like this. Part of Denis's objective seems to be a critique of the whole enterprise of colonialism and its lingering after-effects. The disease of colonialism, she suggests, claimed victims all around, not just the locals. The colonial perpetrators themselves were warped by it as well, and their descendants many generations later are still suffering from many of those perversions and distortions. Huppert's character power-walks around the countryside as if she's the queen. When the social situation gets dangerous, she seems blithely oblivious, as if the locals never even enter her consciousness. She is so used to being in a privileged social position that her mind can't even conceive of anyone hurting her or her family. Her blitheness initially comes across as courageous but gradually appears delusional. When Denis introduces us to the lady's family, we see more examples of how the descendants of colonialists have lost their bearings. The film ends with an explosion of violence that is at times horrifying, much of it chaotic and inexplicable. There are so many layers of bitterness and hostility that you cannot keep track of who is angry at whom. When law and order break down, you get a bizarre cauldron of anti-social rage. At times, Denis depicts this trenchantly and effectively. Other times, it seems like sloppy filmmaking. When Huppert violently turns on a member of her own family, the film particularly comes off the rails. But there is much to appreciate here. "White Material" is flawed, but it probes some fascinating issues that almost no other filmmakers ever explore. It also is gorgeously filmed. There's also the majestic screen presence of Huppert, one of the best actresses in cinema today.

• Walter M

  
  The Boxer(Isaach De Bankole), a soldier and symbol of the rebel resistance, is dead. The Boxer is alive, but wounded and hiding out at Cafe Vial, the coffee plantation managed by Maria Vial(Isabelle Huppert). However, she has other things on her mind than the current civil war, as… More
  The Boxer(Isaach De Bankole), a soldier and symbol of the rebel resistance, is dead. The Boxer is alive, but wounded and hiding out at Cafe Vial, the coffee plantation managed by Maria Vial(Isabelle Huppert). However, she has other things on her mind than the current civil war, as she refuses the French army's offer to evacuate her before leaving her with some lovely parting gifts. She reasons that she only needs a few days to harvest the current crop before it goes bad. That is a task made infinitely harder when all of her workers and even the foremen have fled, leaving her to go off to hire more who are only trying to earn enough so that they too can leave. Directed by Claire Denis, "White Material" is a provocative and occasionally shocking movie about the aftereffects of colonialism and by its very nature control. With Maria's father(Michel Subor) an invalid, an ex-husband(Christophe Lambert!?!) who she feels has always undermined her and this time has sold her out to Cherif(William Nadylam), the local mayor and a grown son(Nicolas Duvauchelle) who makes other layabouts look bad, she feels that she has to take control, as the former country's colonial masters once had. But that situation is no longer viable which the rebels are making perfectly clear. Interests clash as she is only interested in profits whereas the locals are more interested in survival and that of their families which of course is much more important. A lot of that has to do with the rebels who are not in control either with their followers who commit atrocities in their name, especially the child soldiers.

• Daisy M

  
  White Material centered about the family Vials, French colonial types who owned a coffee plantation, in an African country.Isabelle Huppert played Maria, a courageous woman, when even everything was falling apart,she simply won't give up, and even acknowledge the danger that was… More
  White Material centered about the family Vials, French colonial types who owned a coffee plantation, in an African country.Isabelle Huppert played Maria, a courageous woman, when even everything was falling apart,she simply won't give up, and even acknowledge the danger that was lurking around her.The movie captured Africa's wild beauty, and also the extreme danger. Unfortunately there were some weak points, Christopher Lambert was not that good enough, and Maria's character did something brutal and inexplicable at the end and the movie took some strange twists that barely picked up. The biggest problem I had was the narrative structure, where the end occurred at the beginning, which made it came over very confusing. Except that, the movie was quite entertaining.

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