Written by: Claire Denis & Marie NDiaye
Starring: Isabelle Huppert, Christophe Lambert, Nicolas Duvauchelle, Isaach de Bankolé
Rating: [3.5/5]
Putting in a bevy of hard work into a project or endeavor naturally would have that person wants to finish the job. After all, what was the point in the whole thing if the follow through does not also occur. On the other hand, one has to know when they have been dealt a losing hand and in White Material we follow a character refusing to see what is before her as the African nation falls into turmoil, leaving her coffee business stuck in a messy middle.
Operating a failing family-owned coffee plantation in Africa, Maria Vial (Isabelle Huppert) hears news of a civil war breaking out with a rebellion of child soldiers making their way around the nation. While the French military warns her and her family to leave, Maria refuses to leave the plantation given the latest harvest will be ready in five days. Therefore, she does her best to navigate the situation and get workers willing to put in the labor necessary.
The importance of collecting this harvest for Maria cannot be questioned and it stands as the very reason she refuses to leave an obviously dangerous situation. It all gets summed up where a helicopter operated by the French Army repeatedly warns her to abandon the plantation and go with them before things get far too unruly in the nation. Her refusal sets a course where no return exists and she acknowledges that she would give her life for this harvest, seeing as there’s nothing stopping these rebel groups from razing her plantation just like anything else. It raises a major question as to why, which this film does not delve into in much detail but this woman’s perseverance reaches another level and allows us to go through this tense ride.
With Maria going back and forth trying to get everything she needs to ensure this harvest gets taken care of, we see her perspective but also the temperature of how others feel about not only her presence but of all perceived colonizers in the nation. We hear this mainly through the voice of a rebel DJ, who speaks on it in a frank manner. He even mentions that the coffee made at these plantations are subpar anyway and nobody here drinks it further raising the question of why Maria so badly wants to get this harvest done when every other indication suggests she should cut her losses and flee. This DJ essentially represents the voice of the people throughout this feature, those fighting back against the government, and his chimings throughout serves as the counterbalance to this near delusion in the mind of Maria.
As one can imagine, the further this plot moves along the more it displays moments of impending violence but it matters who it comes from. In one particular scene where Maria runs into a roadblock, she encounters a group of rebel soldiers asking for a payment for passage and when she recounts her knowledge of whom each of them are, it does not remotely matter to them. Maria recounts she has worked with their parents before or even dealt with them directly in the past but the dynamics has shifted completely because of this ongoing civil war. All pleasantries have disappeared where Maria no longer serves her purpose to them and now simply represents the colonizing enemy in this whole ordeal. A reality shift for Maria but she will continue to relent on in this journey despite every warning sign possible telling her to get out of the situation while she can with her family in one piece.
Navigating through this unnamed African country, Isabelle Huppert does a splendid job, unsurprisingly, in the lead role. She displays this sheer determination combined with foolishness that made this journey so fascinating to watch play out. Huppert just has a way to capture these emotions in such an effortless manner that gets right at the root of everything transpiring for this character. Maria has a line of craziness to her in the way she refuses to let go of this objective of her and Huppert still manages to make her wholly captivating to watch simply because we’re just waiting for the moment for her to finally come to her senses.
Quite the tense ride from beginning to end, White Material was made for audiences to yell at the screen and try to talk some sense to its lead, but it also opens the door for observations of the place these white individuals have in African nations trying to turn a profit. Sure, they provide jobs to the people but the relationship remains one strung together by the weakest of lines that this film displays in its severance and what it ultimately means for Maria and her family. Immunity and protection mean nothing when a civil war transpires and we continually get hit over the head with bad decision after bad decision Maria makes.
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