Claire Denis' WHITE MATERIAL is the most strikingly original film in a long time. It's style feels Scorsese-esque in its necessity to observe violence, but the composure is fully Denises. The film stars Isabelle Huppert as a once-wealthy white woman living in an unnamed African country. We start the film at the end, thus knowing what horrors will befall her, and then we go back to the beginning, where an always frazzled Huppert tends to her coffee crops. She has a son who deals with having no identity (he is a child of Africa, but white, although he feels connected to the rebellion). Like in the stories we hear today of Africa, there is a bloody rebellion going on, and the leader of the rebellion: The Boxer, hides out in Huppert's barn-like fortitudes. As Huppert is urged to leave by pretty much everyone, she continues to fight for her land, although it is painfully clear to the audience that the woman is looking after fucking coffee. We learn that she won't even make a profit out of the coffee, its contaminated by dead animals, she won't be able to transport it, and yet she still looks after it. This is an insanity that is so integral to Huppert's character. Denis shrouds Huppert's eyes in her messy hair to exhibit her blindness, and attires her film as fetishistically as Hitchcock. WHITE MATERIAL is a masterpiece, quiet and then loud like fingernails on a chalkboard waking us up. The way that Denis follows her characters in never condescending but observatory, she's a great director, and this is a great film.
White Material: ★★★★
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