White Material review (DVD) ★

I had high hopes for this film, but by the end I was left feeling frustrated and bored. Denis enjoys conveying her story through 'mood' rather than excessive use of narrative but I felt crucial elements were left out which, in my opinion, were imperative to enabling the audience connect with the characters.

It follows Maria Vial (Huppert) struggling to keep her coffee plantation open in Africa through civil unrest while time flashes backwards and forwards. I didn't really understand why it was so important for her to stay on the plantation, she risks the lives of her entire family for some measly coffee beans. Which don't even make any money. She is careless and stubborn and unnecessarily inflicts all her misery on herself with her selfish and thoughtless decisions. Her husband (Lambert) and son (Duvauchelle) obviously don’t feel the same connection with the land and the country as she does, yet she doesn’t take them into consideration once.

Perhaps if it has been made clear precisely why she refused to move back to her home country (France), just why she couldn't bear to leave, and why it was worth sacrificing everyone, maybe then I could have been a bit more empathetic. Some history or information on what was happening in the country at the time might have been useful, to get a feel of exactly what state the country was in, and how much danger there was. I’m aware a lot of this is the director's style but at the end of the day, films are about telling a story in the best possible way, and I just don’t think they have succeeded.

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SECOND OPINION | Justin Bateman **½ Jennifer's assertion that this is a 'mood' piece is spot on - there's no doubt that a traditional narrative and overt character exposition are not high on director Claire Denis' agenda. It's also true that Isabelle Huppert's Maria Vial isn't all that sympathetic a character which does make it hard to engage. However, it's not such a stretch that even in the face of the mounting evidence (the coffee plantation isn't making money, she is being told to leave on account of impending danger from guerilla groups) she might choose consciously or otherwise to ignore that facts in order to save what she and her family have undoubtedly spent years building. Simply to walk away would be at odds with someone who chose to go to a foreign country to live and work in the first place. "We can't go at least without a fight," she says more than once.

While White Material is beautifully shot and really captures the poor, dusty atmosphere of the unnamed African country but for most of the time events unfold at a snail's pace which won't be for everyone. But by largely eschewing the more dramatic elements of civil unrest, Denis builds what feels like a more realistic depiction of what happens in these times, where the threat of violence is all too real and people's attitudes and behaviours change in ways which would be unthinkable in normal circumstances.