White Material (Claire Denis, 2009)

The title refers to the residue left behind by departing colonials, in terms of both infrastructure and cultural baggage. Here it's in an unspecified African country, and the director's choice of leaving it open is a double-edged sword: it may make statements about the repercussions of the fall of the colonial system more universal, but at the same time divorced of real context.
Isabelle Huppert and Christophe Lambert play plantation owners under pressure to leave the country and their possessions with the impending approach of rebel forces. Lambert's moderated character is a surprising inclusion considering his OTT portfolio, but he's strictly second fiddle to Huppert's in any case, as she grows increasingly unstable in her frenzy to cling on to what she considers her birthright.
It's a deconstructed narrative, presumably for the purpose of creating disorientation. Huppert, as usual, fills the centre of the film with a performance of quiet but feverish intensity. However, the problem is that that's all you expect of a Huppert character, and her character's illogical intransigence does not surprise as a result, particularly as she already played the same character in the same set-up, even if in Cambodia, in Rithy Panh's more affecting The Sea Wall, just the year before. Meanwhile, the Liberia-set Johnny Mad Dog was more effective at conveying the horror at what had come to pass.
It's hence a very mixed bag, with the child rebels also feeling like little more than ciphers, with the focus as usual on the Europeans, despite what the Africa-raised director's intentions might have been. What probably got the critics raving and what, after all's said, deserves credit is Denis's uniquely poetic eye, full of telling details, and the absolute refusal to give in to simplification of the issues.

6/10