White Material (Blu-ray)
Directed by Claire Denis
Studio: Criterion
Year: 2009
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 1080p AVC codec
Running Time: 105 minutes
Rating: NR
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 French
Subtitles: English
Region: A
MSRP: $ 39.95
Release Date: April 12, 2011
Review Date: April 7, 2011
The Film
3.5/5
A gripping contrast between stubborn resistance to dangerous opposition versus one’s love of land blinding him to a greater goal and more immediate necessities makes Claire Denis’ White Material at the same time both mesmerizing and frustrating. The film’s main character is a strong, determined woman of great heart and compassion, but her obstinate denial of the terrifying dangers all around her results in a degree of audience impatience few movies of recent memory have generated. By the end, you’ll be hard pressed to feel genuine sympathy for one so deluded by her own goals that the chaos around her forces her to lose everything that’s most important in order to mulishly finish what she has set out to do.
Despite a civil war raging all around her coffee plantation in an unnamed (but suggestive of Ivory Coast) African nation, Maria Vial (Isabelle Huppert) is determined to harvest her coffee crop needing only one more week to get the job finished. Even after the municipal authorities launch a helicopter and plead with her to leave the area and her workers flee from both the ragtag rebels and the military, Maria refuses to give up. Her husband André (Christophe Lambert) begs her to think of their safety and the safety of their lazy, rebellious son Manuel (Nicolas Duvauchelle), but instead Maria heads off to find some other workers who aren’t intimidated by the warring factions in the area. But things are more serious than Maria suspects with the rebels, many of them children, who are unafraid to sneak onto the plantation, steal what they can, kill or humiliate whomever they can find, and take off. The natives of the area have become openly contemptuous of the “white material” who, even though some have been there for generations, are considered outsiders and no longer welcome to exploit land they feel is rightfully theirs.
Director /co-screenwriter Claire Denis (in collaboration with writers Marie N’Diaye and Lucie Borleteau) has given the film a wonderfully patchwork structure with a somewhat frantic Maria hitching a ride on a bus early on leading to a series of flashbacks a couple of days earlier when hostilities between her family and the outlying rebels began to intensify. As the film jumps back and forth between past and present, we see Maria’s determination never wavering in spite of overwhelming evidence that her family is living in the gravest of danger. Denis brings feelings right out into the open by focusing intensely on faces throughout the movie. Even in widescreen, we see faces reflecting fear, anger, confusion, determination, and great menace deeply establishing an almost unbearable amount of tension about the events to come. With the younger rebels truly without conscience and capable of extreme barbarism, Maria’s refusal to face the deadly reality of their situation is confoundingly exasperating. Perhaps her ultimate foolishness in thinking her familiarity to the region’s locals or the generosity she’s shown them over the years will ultimately protect her, but as the film enters its final act, one’s expectations that common sense will inevitably win out and the family have a fighting chance to save itself peters out rather piteously leaving only a small sense of tragedy and a great sense of outrage over what we’ve seen from both sides of the question.
Isabelle Huppert remains front and center throughout the entire film with her very earnest and yet narrowly defined character. Impressive as she is, the character she’s playing seems to have a few cogs missing from her psychological make-up, but Huppert doesn’t let us past that thick outer shell making for a performance that keeps the audience at arm’s length. Isaach De Bankolé plays a character known as “The Boxer,” a strong rebel around whom the other demonstrators rally, but as he’s wounded for most of the film, he must play his part from a cot mostly relying on his expressive eyes to convey his fears and regrets. Christophe Lambert does yeoman’s work as Maria’s husband who can’t make his wife see reason while Nicolas Duvauchelle as the slacker son has a couple of very notable moments in the spotlight which he milks for all they’re worth.
Video Quality
4.5/5
The film has been framed at 2.35:1 and is presented in 1080p using the AVC codec. Using natural light without any diffusion, the image has a bright, slightly bleached quality that takes some adjustment. Flesh tones seem a little pinkish on the Caucasians, but the sharpness of the transfer reveals much detail in skin, hair, and clothes. Occasionally focus seems to be off in some panoramic shots, but overall, the image is impressive. The subtitles are delivered in white and are always readable as long as the backgrounds aren’t lightly colored. The film has been divided into 23 chapters.
Audio Quality
3.5/5
The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 sound mix has a very limited surround soundfield. True, the music of Tindersticks does wrap through the fronts and into the rear channels, but many opportunities for surround ambient sounds go unrealized. Dialogue has been placed into the center channel and is always easily discernable.
Special Features
3.5/5
Three comprehensive interviews with key personnel in the film are presented in 1080p.
- Director Claire Denis talks for 24 ¼ minutes on the pre-production work on the movie, the scouting for locations, the choice of a new director of photography after her longtime associate Agnes Godard had to decline the job, the work on the script, and her working relationship with star Isabelle Huppert.
- Isabelle Huppert discusses her approach to the character in a 14 ¼-minute interview as well as discussing working with Denis.
- Isaach De Bankolé speaks for 13 ¼ minutes about his own previous work for director Denis (in Chocolat) as well as working so closely with the child actors, and relating the feelings of the character to his own life.
There is one deleted scene (which would have been an asset to the movie) presented in 1080i and running for 2 ¼ minutes.
Director Claire Denis shot a 12 ½-minute video short detailing her experiences of trying to present the premiere of the movie to a VIP audience in Cameroon’s Ecrans Noirs Film Festival. The short is presented in 1080i.
The film’s theatrical trailer runs for 1 ¾ minutes in 1080p.
The enclosed 22-page booklet offers the cast and crew lists, a generous selection of color stills and portraits, and a revealing portrait of the director and her movies by film essayist Amy Taubin.
The Criterion Blu-rays include a maneuvering tool called “Timeline” which can be pulled up from the menu or by pushing the red button on the remote. It shows you your progress on the disc and the title of the chapter you’re now in. Additionally, two other buttons on the remote can place or remove bookmarks if you decide to stop viewing before reaching the end of the film or want to mark specific places for later reference.
In Conclusion
3.5/5 (not an average)
Unquestionably a movie both intriguing and testing, Claire Denis’ White Material succeeds in establishing a tremendous mood of anxiety despite occasional lapses in character development. Excellent special material offered as bonuses makes this a Criterion release well worth experiencing.
Matt Hough
Charlotte, NC
