WHITE MATERIAL (Criterion/eOne, 2009) D: Claire Denis, w/ Isabelle Huppert, Christophe Lambert. Rating: NNNNN DVD package: NNNN Rating: NNNNN
A powerful sense of doom and emerging chaos hangs over Claire Denis’s tale of a white African coffee grower whose unnamed country is erupting into civil war.
Maria Vial (Isabelle Huppert) runs the plantation but doesn’t own it her behaviour and the images of her small figure in the vast landscape make it clear that the land owns her. When everyone flees, she works on the crop. Nothing is more important. When the wounded rebel leader hides on her farm, she treats him as she does everybody else. She has no sense of the hatred around her.
Huppert, as always, gives an unmannered, believable performance. I don’t think there’s an actor on earth who can convey more with less.
You’ll find much varied insight in the interviews with Denis, Huppert and Isaach De Bankolé (who plays the rebel leader).
EXTRAS Director and cast interviews, film premiere in Cameroon doc, essay book. Widescreen. French audio. English subtitles.
