Showing Films Worth Seeing...
White Material (15)
Isabelle Huppert is Maria, wife and mother, who owns a coffee plantation and is fighting to keep her family and her business together against the chaotic backdrop of a brutal African civil war. Armed child soldiers flock the local streets as French helicopters patrol the sky – hoping to save French families, like Maria’s, from near certain disaster. Her family has become the ‘white material’ of the title, swept helplessly along by the weight of politics and history like so much flotsam, trying desperately to survive. Denis plunges the viewer into the physical and emotional turmoil of this environment to memorably powerful effect. With a strong turn from Isaach de Bankole as a legendary black hero whose world has also been turned upside down, as he comes into contact with Maria.
Director: Claire Denis
Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Claude Brialy, Nicolas Duvauchelle,
Isaach de Bankolé, Christopher Lambert
Language: French, with subtitles 100mins
