White Material

Plot

Maria Vial is a white French farmer who runs (with her ex-husband, Andre, and his sickly father) a failing coffee plantation in an unnamed African country in the present day. Maria and Andre have a lazy, mentally unstable son, Manuel, while Andre has another half-African son, Jose. Civil war has broken out and rebel soldiers, many of them child soldiers, are advancing on the area. The French military, while pulling out, makes one final plea for Maria to leave, but unyielding in her desire to protect her family's home, she ignores the warnings. Meanwhile, a rebel DJ on the radio urges the rebels on and advocates attacks on emblems of colonialism. Maria's workers flee for fear of the upcoming conflict. Maria stubbornly refuses to abandon the plantation and its harvest, which will be ready in five days. Risking her life and unable to find Andre, she drives to a village to hire men to finish harvesting the coffee. On the way, she is forced to pay off bandits who threaten to kill her at a roadblock. After hiring the workers, she stops at the elementary school and collects Andre's other son, Jose. Jose is an upbeat boy of about 12, and we later learn that his mother is Andre's father's young housekeeper.

Meanwhile, we see Andre in town meeting with the African mayor, Cherif. Cherif seeing that Andre is desperate, takes advantage of the situation and offers to purchase the plantation for the cancellation of Andre's debts. Cherif requires Andre to get his father to sign over the coffee plantation to him. Having returned to the plantation, Maria searches out her son Manuel and finds him in bed after midday. Trying to rouse him, she laments his listlessness and scolds that he is without purpose. Manuel rises, and after a swim, is intrigued by a noise in the house. He follows it to two young rebels. They run, and in spite of his lack of shoes, Manuel follows them far from the home. They eventually corner them; he discovers that they're armed with a spear and a machete. The rebel boys threaten him, cut his hair, and retreat to the bush, firing shots from a revolver. Maria, Andre, and some workers converge on Manuel and are shocked to find him stripped and standing naked in the field. The fact that the oldest boy stuck his revolver down Manuel's pants, as well as his state of shock, the dirt on his hands and knees, and his later over-reaction, suggest he may have been raped off camera. Maria loads him in the tractor and heads back to the house. Manuel, obviously traumatized and out of his mind, abandons the tractor and goes to his grandfather's home. There the heavily tattooed Manuel reacts to his assault by shaving his head, stealing his grandfather's shotgun, attacking Jose's mother, and disappearing on his mother's motorbike.

Despite Andre's continued pleas that they should flee, Maria remains steadfast in her efforts to bring in the coffee crop. She discovers the wounded rebel hero known as 'The Boxer' in a barn and feeds him. As night falls the workers bed down and Maria falls asleep dreaming of an earlier evening where we see her discussing Manuel with Cherif in what appears to be a romantic situation fueled by marijuana. Cherif warns her that her son is 'half-baked', a statement which makes her laugh. She awakens and attempts to start work again. However, the radio issues reports that the Boxer is being harbored by the "foreigners" and that loyal citizens should oppose them. Her workers, hearing this, demand to be paid immediately. Upon threat, Maria opens the safe to find that the money is all gone, likely taken by Andre to secure passage out of the country. The workers demand to be driven back to the village. Maria agrees and starts driving them back.

Before they can reach the village they are stopped by a band of young rebels who appear to be wearing her clothing and jewelry. The rebels demand the truck and, when a worker protests that they are just poor villagers, the rebels shoot him and drive off leaving Maria by the roadside. Maria discovers they have looted the pharmacy and killed the doctor and his assistant. Driving the truck down the road the rebels are pursued by Manuel who tells them that he knows where the Boxer is, and leads them back to the plantation. He is clearly mad as he assists the rebels to loot his own family's food store. The rebels and Manuel gorge themselves on the food and then ingest the many pharmaceutical products which they have stolen. Almost all then pass out in and around the house.

Government troops then retake control of the area. We see them slip onto the plantation grounds immediately in front of Andre's father who calls out no warning to anyone inside. We see the troops move from room to room, slitting the throats of the rebels who are passed out from the orgy of food and medication. Government troops then lock the gun-toting Manuel in one of the farm buildings and burn him to death. Andre is shown dead on the floor of the house holding the family passports.

In the town Maria is overwrought, she is seeking a way back to the house when Cherif sees her and gives her a ride. At the plantation Maria finds Manuel's charred body. Andre's father is shown walking around the barn where Manuel was burned. Maria hacks Andre's father to death with a machete, presumably seeing him at least partly responsible for the death of her son. Another reason may be the fact that Andre's father had promised Maria that she would inherit the plantation, but has broken the promise this very day by selling the land to Cherif, the mayor. Since Maria's ex-husband, who was instigator of the sale, has already been killed, his father is the only one in the family left to be punished.

At the end, we see one rebel leaving the area with the wounds to his head. He carries the beret of the Boxer. He tucks it into his trousers and continues into the countryside.

Cast

Reception

White Material has an overall approval rating of 88% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Manohla Dargis of the New York Times described it as a "...powerful, agonized film." Roger Ebert was especially impressed with the performance of Isabelle Huppert, "...small and slender, [she] embodies the strength of a fighter. In so many films, she is an indomitable force, yet you can't see how she does it. She rarely acts broadly. The ferocity lives within. Sometimes she is mysteriously impassive; we see what she's determined to do, but she sends no signals with voice or eyes to explain it." Michael Koresky of IndieWire concurs, and also praises the ensemble cast: "Maria is hardly the film’s only character. Christophe Lambert gives a surprisingly fragile performance as her ex-husband, while Nicolas Duvauchelle is downright frightening as the beautiful, blond, lazy Manuel, who descends to peculiar pathological depths and thrusts himself into unexpected action." Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times also praised the film, "Though it deals with serious political themes and confronts deep personal issues, perhaps the most unexpected thing about "White Material" is that it never forgets to add artful beauty to the mix."

Home media

A digitally restored version of the film was released on DVD and Blu-ray by The Criterion Collection in April 2011 and features new interviews with Denis and actors Isabelle Huppert and Isaach de Bankolé, a short documentary by Denis on the film’s premiere at the 2010 Écrans Noirs Film Festival in Cameroon, and deleted scene.

Top ten lists

The film has appeared on a number of critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2010.

Awards and nominations