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Criterion Collection: White Material [DVD] [2009] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

Isaach De Bankole (Actor), Christopher Lambert (Actor), Claire Denis (Director) | Format: DVD
3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)

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Region 1 encoding (requires a North American or multi-region DVD player and NTSC compatible TV. More about DVD formats.)

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Product details

  • Actors: Isaach De Bankole, Christopher Lambert, Nicolas Duvauchelle, William Nadylam
  • Directors: Claire Denis
  • Format: Colour, DVD-Video, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
  • Language: French
  • Subtitles: English
  • Region: Region 1 (US and Canada DVD formats.)
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9 - 1.77:1
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Classification: Unrated (US MPAA rating. See details.)
  • Studio: Criterion
  • DVD Release Date: 12 April 2011
  • Run Time: 105 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B004JOBATS
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 194,196 in Film & TV (See Top 100 in Film & TV)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Foreigners in a foreign land 19 Jan 2011
By technoguy TOP 1000 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE
Format:DVD
White Material is vague,obtuse,brooding,inexplicable,lacking psychological detail or narrative structure or plotting dynamic.Entering into a dreamworld of image and sound impressions, we read from the characters and pick up from the landscape the clues we need from the montage of concrete impression and abstract manouever.From the opening running dogs caught in the headlights to the dead body of the rebel leader caught in the torchlight we enter the oneiric door of a disturbing realm.We are in a perpetual present,both timeless and modern,in an unnamed African Francophone country.Isabel Huppert(Maria) runs a coffee plantation for her family,ex-husband, father-in-law,son.Stubbornly, blindly wanting to harvest and process the coffee beans, in the face of civil war,despite the fact her farmworkers are fleeing for their own survival,that her son is bone-idle,her ex-husband(Lambert) wants to leave,her father-in-law just wanders around,not wishing to leave.Things are left unsaid,or we pick up from two native speakers or a rebel DJ that the party is over for white people:"no more drinking cocktails on the verandah". Their farms and possessions are `white material',superficial to the needs of the African people, in the escalating civil war between government militia and wandering child soldiers and rebel gunmen.

Unfolding in flash-backs as Maria scrambles to make her way back home on the back of a bus.Huppert plays her part with steely magnificence and physical perseverence. Maria is determined to stay and with the help of local villagers, carries on alone to manage the harvest,in an attempt to bring the coffee to market.The dehumanising force of violence sweeps everybody up in its psychotic force,especially the troubled Manuel(Duvauchelle),Maria's son.... Read more ›
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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Even Darker than Chocolat. 14 Dec 2010
By Bob Salter TOP 100 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE
Format:DVD
It was great to catch another film by the talented French director Clair Denis, and starring the very gifted Isabelle Huppert. Her stunning first film "Chocolat" made in 1988, which I have also watched recently, was a revelation that enticed me into watching her bewitching portrayal of life in the Foreign Legion "Beau Travail". Whilst I personally don't believe that it quite achieves the skilfully constructed nuances of these films, it is a very compelling film never the less. Clair Denis goes back to a subject that she understands so well, and explored to such powerful effect in "Chocolat", the white mans alienation in Africa. Brought up in colonial Africa she understands what it is to be a "Stranger in a Strange Land". The first reviewer is correct to draw comparisons with Conrad's "Heart of Darkness". Denis's Africa is the same white mans graveyard that Conrad so graphically wrote about, although interestingly Denis has based her film loosely on nobel prize winning author Doris Lessing's book "The Grass is singing".

The story concerns a white coffee growing family caught up in a stereo typical Central African civil war, of boy soldiers and arbitrary killings, where life is getting cheaper by the minute. The country might be Rwanda or Sierra Leone. It is clearly filmed in the same area as "Chocolat", which I believe was Cameroon, an old French colony. Most of the whites, sensibly seeing the writing on the wall, have left the country, but this family headed by family patriarch Michel Subor and supported by his daughter in law Isabelle huppert stubbornly ignore the possible fatal consequences of staying. This is certainly not so far fetched as it seems. Many whites stayed on in the Belgian Congo long after after their situation had become untenable.... Read more ›
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Not for sensitive souls 7 Nov 2011
By Alixlune
Format:DVD
I must say I was the only one at home who liked it depsite it's long silences, it's lack of subtelty, it's lack of logic or explanations too. But it must be said that this is a 15 plus film, killing is shown with no adrenaline to justify it and it is gory. The female character lacks inner logic, she is blind to all around her and her reaction at the end I still don't understand. The images stay with you and hurt.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars White Material 18 Dec 2011
By Mr. Gary M. Stocker
Format:DVD
Set in a former French colony where a French peace keeping force is withdrawing from and there is a serious insurgency happening. However the owner of a coffee bean farm is refusing to leave and is determined to get the harvest in. Despite the fact that she gets no help from her son, people are reluctant to work there and there are insurgents nearby.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling material 5 Jan 2011
By Viviana Fernandez
Format:DVD
I had read many positive reviews of this movie. In addition, I am a great fan of Isabelle Huppert's work, so I looked forward to watching this movie. I particularly liked Claire Denis' non-chronological storyline. It's hard to tell whether this I. Huppert's most brilliant performance ever, but I. Huppert always gives outstanding performances.

From the DVD, I learned that the genesis of this movie came from I. Huppert's idea of making D. Lessing's "The grass is singing" into a movie. (C. Denis found it complicated to film and came up with the script of "White material").
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars "The Horror! The Horror!" 21 Sep 2012
By Bardo Boy
Format:DVD
The film's title suggests it has something to say about race. Anyone who has seen 'Chocolat' will expect the sensitive topic to be handled by the director with power, insight and through fully formed characters. However this film seems to be the other's antithesis.

The barbarity of the final scenes are as shocking as the barbarity of the thinking behind them. Their implication is that the anti-heroine and her son have (a little like Kurtz in Conrad's novel 'Heart of Darkness') become as 'savage' as 'the Africans'. The charge of racism can't be avoided by showing that within all 'White Europeans' is an 'African Savage' waiting to escape - this simply compounds the fundamental problem that the film has. Denis may think she is undermining stereotypes but the entire film only reinforces them.

For me it is an inescapable flaw. Where 'Chocolat' tried to say too much this says too little and says it incoherently. There is exceptionally good cimematography in parts (which creates the film's incredible sense of brooding violence and scenes of it's horrific realisation). Yet it is all built on such an offensively banal depiction of 'Africa' that it only works if you aren't offended by it.

It portrays Africa in an essentialist way and only as a one-dimensional brooding threat to the multi-dimensional 'White' characters. Its plot is a tragedy in the classical sense but the lack of any consideration that Black people, people who think about racial discrimination or even(?!)African's might watch it is just tragic.

This film ironically portrays an Africa only valid as a backdrop for 'White (only) Material'.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic performance from Isabelle Huppert
An un-named country in Africa, a plantation owner refuses to leave her business and livelihood despite growing tension and violence in a period of civil war. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Seoulprovider
5.0 out of 5 stars Hard edged film from one of the best directors around
Stunning film on all levels, Isabelle Huppert is just mesmerising to watch as she doggedly tries to carry on as normal in the face of the mounting signs of frightening and... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Minkie
2.0 out of 5 stars Black mans burden
I pretty much agree with the 3 star review by Ian Thumwood. He wrote more lucidly than I could have what I would have tried to say. Read more
Published on 1 Mar 2011 by iliketowatch
2.0 out of 5 stars More opaque, than white material
Having just seen this film, I share some views below concerning the shortcomings of this opaque film. Read more
Published on 25 Jan 2011 by Wildwoods
3.0 out of 5 stars Note on other reviews
A note here needs to be made for readers that the other reviewers here assume that you know that the film "Chocolat" refers to the one by Clair Dennis set in the Cameroons and NOT... Read more
Published on 16 Jan 2011 by K. Harvey
3.0 out of 5 stars A great film struggling to get out
Anyone like me who approached this film for the first time expecting a mix of "Out of Africa" and "The last king of Scotland" should be warned. Read more
Published on 13 Oct 2010 by Ian Thumwood
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