White Material

Cecil says: It's not often you get a chance to see a French film on the big screen in Washington, so we jumped at the chance to see this at our local cinema round the corner.



Beautiful chaos - are the two words that spring to mind, having seen White Material. It's set somewhere in Africa (a never-defined country, but a mixture of Liberia and Somalia would give you an idea); and it's set at some point in time, maybe contemporary, maybe as long ago as the 90s.



It's all beautifully filmed (on location in Cameroon, I think), but the story is disjointed and really quite hard to follow...But that was probably the intention of the director - Claire Denis. She depicts a society in chaos and at war; and a family in the middle of all that which is going through its own chaos



It's the story of a coffee plantation family from France. The family is split over whether to stay and live through the chaos ("Just 5 days left to complete the harvest") or to get out and return to France. Trouble is, it's also a dysfunctional family: three generations are there, but offspring from different relationships make it hard to work out sometimes who is really related to who. But that is all part of the chaos. Through it all, Isabelle Huppert is brilliant as the mother and manager of the coffee plantation.



All around them there is a civil war going on: you have rebels, often boy (and girl) soldiers running amok with guns and spears; soldiers; corrupt mayors with their own personal army; and a reggae-playing rebel DJ announcing the latest names who would do best to get out of the country.



Reading about Claire Denis after the film, I saw that she too had a colonial upbringing in Cameroon, so much of the context is presumably accurate. I've not seen any of her earlier films, but on the evidence of White Material, I'd go again. This was compelling stuff.



And final tips for those who have not yet seen the film: look out for her white dress, because that gives you a hint of what is memory and what is happening now; and then try to work out the significance of the yellow dogs: they open the whole film, but I couldn't for the life of me work them out...

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Bea says: From the very first moment of this film I was completely caught up in the atmosphere, created by the slow (but never dull) pace, the crackling tension, the African scenery so well filmed I could almost feel the hot wind blowing, and the evocative music by the Tindersticks.

The central female character played by Huppert is at times foolish in the stubbornness of her resolve to remain on the farm despite many warnings to leave, but unusually in cinema she is also strong, capable, resourceful and brave. I enjoyed watching her story unfold.

It was indeed hard at times to follow the jump-cut storyline, and trace the complex family and social relationships of the characters - meaning events would sometimes happen before I had quite figured out how they fit with the story and characters - but this of course is what happens at a time of choas and emergency.

A beautifully made film, well worth a look.
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