With the haunting White Material, Claire Denis returns to Africa, the setting for her first, remarkable film, Chocolat. Twenty years later, the world she depicts is completely different from the one she sketched so brilliantly in her early work. The childhood memories of the young white girl in Chocolat have been replaced by the stark realities of black child soldiers. This Africa is torn by civil war and strife. It is a place where children packing automatic rifles patrol the streets and byways of dusty villages, itching for a fight and emboldened by their weaponry.
Amid the tumult of helicopters urging French nationals to flee for their safety and well-being, a French family struggles to save its coffee plantation. Pulled in competing directions, confused by the pace of events that unfold both within their compound and out on the streets of the neighbouring village, they have been labelled “white material,” and local radio stations warn that their day is over. Surrounded by the violence and chaos of civil war, they find themselves virtually powerless against the forces of history that swirl around them.
With this threat of impending disaster as a backdrop, Denis uses her significant skill to tell the story of Maria (Isabelle Huppert), manager of the Café Vial plantation, who fights desperately to keep her life and business together. With her ex-husband at her side and her son violently propelled into the action, Maria must draw on all her resources to survive. At the same time, a legendary black hero, the Boxer (Isaach De Bankolé), also finds that his world has been turned upside down. Inevitably, the two are fated to meet.
Denis, always the visual magician, creates a world of beautiful but troubling images. In her hands, the camera is an expressive force that she employs to intervene, reveal and interpret. She immerses the viewer in her chosen reality, making us feel, see and hear everything she puts in front of us, opening our senses to what she is showing. As their way of life disintegrates around them, each character makes choices, none of which is predictable. With White Material, Denis explores the highly charged, divided and intensely emotional post-colonial world that is Africa.
Piers Handling
Claire Denis was born in Paris and raised primarily in Africa. She graduated from L'Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques. Many of her films have played at the Festival, including Chocolat (88), Man No Run (89), S'en fout la mort (90),
J'ai pas sommeil (94), Nénette et Boni (96), Beau travail (99), Trouble Every Day (01), Vendredi Soir (02), L'Intrus (04), 35 Rhums (08) and White Material (09).