White Material [Blu-ray]

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.At the centre of the maelstrom is the brooding figure of Boxer(De Bankole),who is wounded,on the run,bleeding away into legend.He's the rebel leader.Hiding out on Maria's farm.This is a journey into the heart of darkness,in a vision of African-set apocalypse.Raw, unfocused,with no coherence,but a fluid logic of consciousness as it experiences collapse and chaos.We experience a world with pitiless intensity: "how being white in Africa gives you a special status, almost a kind of magical aura. It protects you from misery and starvation. But although it can protect you, it is dangerous too. This is what Maria has to learn. The danger for Maria is that she thinks she belongs in Africa because she is close to the land and the people. She cannot return to France because she thinks that it will weaken her. But she learns that she doesn't belong in Africa as much as she thinks. For many white people in Africa this is the reality(Denis)."The sound track by Tindersticks is mesmerizing.The film captures the white colonialists' guilt and bad faith,but also their passionate longing to stay as they are caught in the middle of an African civil war.The rhythm of the film strikes you and the blistering,dry,dusty yet beautiful landscape.

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. Michel Subor provides a monolithic Brando like presence, who gives us a very "Apocalypse Now" moment towards the end of the film. Old Lord Greystoke himself Christophe Lambert, is actually very good as Subor's realist son. Both he and father are Africa born and bred, but still sadly have no place in the new order. Huppert is superb as Lambert's wife who steadfastly refuses to face facts, when her world is crumbling all about her. Isaach De Bankole, whom Denis used to such good effect in "Chocolat", does not get enough screen time to make a real impact as a revolutionary icon.

The films treatment of building tension is expertly handled, using imaginative film angles to aid in cranking this up. Violence is amply conveyed, without having to resort to the usual gouts of blood so beloved by film makers. The film to quote Herman Melville has " A polar wind that blows through it and birds of prey that hover over it". The clammy sense of foreboding is all consuming. This certainly isn't the same dark continent recalled in "Out of Africa" and "Hatari". It is thought provoking and disturbing. Clair Denis makes it clear that the white man is merely a tourist in Africa, and those heady inglorious colonial days when the likes of Cecil Rhodes cut a swathe across Africa, are now but a crumbling memory. With the ongoing situation in Zimbabwe, the film is very much relevant for today, and no doubt tomorrow. I like Clair Denis, she is a damn good film maker. I don't suppose she would be too concerned if the renowned Bob Salter, (Captain Spindrift) didn't like her. But I do, so there! An excellent film that is well worth a watch. A good book to read concerning Africa's colonial past is "King Leopold's Ghost", which I found very illuminating. The films extras contain interesting interviews with Denis and Lambert.

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.