WHITE MATERIAL

I finally got to see Clare Dennis’s movie that made nearly all the critics Top Ten Lists last year.  It came and went so quickly the first time around, that I blinked and missed it.  Same could be said about the multi-layer chaos of this movie’s story that if you blink you miss some potential vital scene that may have made the plot more fathomable.

Set in colonial Africa, which is Ms Dennis’s favorite setting for her movies, it centers around Marie a skinny middle-aged French woman who is fighting all the odds to stay on her family’s coffee plantation.  The country is in the middle of a civil war and the French Army tries to persuade Marie to leave the country just as they are now doing. Her ex husband Andre has already sold the place in order to get money to escape, and the new owner is the local mayor who actually has his own private army.  And then there is her ex-father-in-law Henri who is mysteriously sick and seems to know more about everything than he ever lets on, which will be his undoing eventually.  And her 20 yr old son Manuel, who is humiliated by the rebels, subsequently returns home, shaves his head, and steals a gun and loses the plot (and us!) and goes off on a wild rampage with the rebels.  And then Marie’s workers flee, the power is cut, the gasoline runs out, and family members disappear or get killed, and then to cap it all, the wounded Rebel leader turns up for shelter endangering practically everyone.

The most intriguing part is the fierce and manic determination of Marie not to ever give up and leave. She believes that she belongs here and that this is her country, and she disparagingly refers to other Europeans as ‘those dirty white people’.   To go back to France would be worse than dying here, and there are so many times in this plot you think she is going to get her wish.  This violent terrorizing war drama is less about survival itself, but much more about the total obsession of this one woman.  Played by the incomparable Isabelle Hubert, the entire drama falls squarely on her shoulders which is perfect as some of the other casting decisions (Christophe Lambert as Andre) just do not  work, or their characters seem incomplete.

I will confess that I needed to view it again (I already have a UK DVD of it) before I could write this piece, and the second time around I was more prepared for the confusing start when its very tough putting the pieces of the puzzle of the story together.  I liked it much more, and even knowing what was in store, the violent end still horrified and shocked me.  An intriguing movie that will stay in my memory a long time (always a good sign) but not one that would have made my ‘Top Ten List’ for 2010.