At roughly the midpoint of Claire Denis’ White Material, Maria (Isabelle Huppert)
is driving a truck of newly hired laborers to her coffee plantation. One of the
laborers asks Maria if she is the boss. “Yes,” she replies and after a moment
of hesitation adds “I mean, I am in charge, but I don’t own anything.” The
laborer responds “If you don’t own anything…it’s all hot air.” Maria remains
silent. She appears momentarily stunned by the casual remark of her employee,
perhaps realizing that the comment applies not only to her situation, but to
the legacy of colonialism she is a part of.
That brief exchange is the most political moment of White Material. By placing her characters in an African
country during a civil war, writer/director Denis had plenty of opportunities
to weave a melodrama about a white woman in the dark heart of Africa. Instead
we are treated to an intimate character study about French citizen Maria, who
is trying to hold together her family, her coffee plantation, and her life as
war inches closer. A greedy ex-husband (Christopher Lambert); an arrogant and
idle son (Nicolas Duvauchelle); and a sickly ex-father-in-law (Michel Subor)
only multiply Maria’s burdens.
Even though writer/director Denis places her characters in
the middle of armed conflict, she has no interest in examining the political
environment. We know we are in Africa, but the name of the country is never
mentioned. We are aware a war is happening, but there is never a mention of
specific agendas. If not for a brief shot of a flat screen TV it would have
been difficult to even place the events of the film within a specific decade.
It is quite easy to view White
Material as a commentary on colonialism. The audience’s only guide through
all of this is Maria, a white French woman whose only concern apparently is to
harvest her coffee crop on time, despite all those violent, nameless Africans
trying to get in her way. Maria ignores the events around her, much to her peril.
Eventually the violence that has been threatening her isolated existence
encroaches on those closest to her. Her son Manuel is humiliated by two child
soldiers and snaps. He shaves his head, assaults his family’s housekeeper, and
runs off in the bush. He later joins up with another group of child soldiers,
gleefully leading them in ransacking the plantation and setting it on fire.
If the film ended there it would be easy to frame it as a
tale of reaping what you sow. But Denis brings us to a very dark place. When
Maria returns to her plantation to see in aflame something in her gives. As When
Maria walks through the inferno and she spies her father-in-law she shockingly
hacks him to death with a machete. It is a perplexing and provocative finale. It
is also a fairly definitive answer to the question of whether White Material is about colonialism. (The
answer is no in case you weren’t paying attention.)
As mentioned previously, it is a curious task to talk about
a film about war in which no actual battles are shown onscreen. But that
statement is not entirely true. The entire film is about Maria’s battle, with
the environment, the economy, her family. The most fundamental battle Maria
fights though is for her identity. She is constantly reminding people that
while yes, she is white, she is also African. This is her adopted home and she
refuses to give up on it.
There is a scene towards the end of the film where the mayor
of the village is talking to Maria about her son. He comments on Manuel’s blue
eyes and blonde hair, saying “This is his country. He was born here. But it
doesn’t like him.” It is this comment that is the source of Maria’s rage
against her father-in-law. She feels
wrong that her identity has been stripped from her, that because of her skin
color she’ll never be truly accepted in the country she loves. It is a chilling
and striking inversion of the typical tales of identity politics.
White Material is currently available on Netflix Streaming.
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