White Material

‘Claire Denis often explores the things that hold the world together at its very core: violence and passion, dreams and memories, everyday life and routine, alienation and tenderness. In *i*White Material*/i*, she follows the dismantling of a coffee plantation amidst the turmoil of an African civil war. The workers flee; the owner (Isabelle Huppert) tries to organise new workers in the village to bring in the harvest; her husband tries to save his own skin by striking deals with the mayor and his militias; the father is terminally ill, and the adult son is no help either, as he has long since gone off on his own tangent. But relationships in Denis’s films are never that easy to fathom, because you have to work them out for yourself. The fascination stems from the fact that the characters never vie for attention, but reveal only as much as you are prepared to invest in your encounter with them. You move through their world on equal terms, at first tentatively, then curiously, until at some point you find yourself captivated. (…) Just how precise and affectionate Claire Denis’s gaze is becomes clear from the fact that one has rarely seen Isabelle Huppert as at ease as she is here.’ (Michael Althen, Viennale, Oct 2009)