White Material

The setting is an unspecified African country at an unspecified time (it could be any time during the last 30 years) but an all too recognisable brutal civil war is simmering. An air of foreboding permeates the film from the very beginning. We know "The Boxer" is a dead man from the first shots so while the flashback scenes lack tension, they have an unnerving ominous weight. The locals are well aware of the implications of the war and endeavour to remove themselves from the crossfire - as one of Maria's fleeing foremen tells her, the French army helicopter came for *her* family, not her workers. The whites have an opportunity to escape; the locals are to be left to their own devices. Maria's stubborn (arrogant?) refusal to accept the reality of the situation and determination to harvest the coffee crop blinds her to what is actually happening around her, illustrated most vividly by the presence of the wounded Boxer on her property and the child soldiers who wander through her house at will. Her ex-husband might act from venal motives but he at least understands the danger, not that it ultimately does him any good. The violence spreads from the surrounding areas - via the child soldiers and the opposing army - into the very heart of the privileged white home, infecting the occupants with its madness. Cannily the violence itself is kept mostly offscreen and both sides are culpable, although the corruption of the existing regime is also plainly indicated. Both sides commit senseless acts of violence but a key sequence reminds us that the child soldiers are just that: children. The group have raided a pharmacy and killed the staff, and then take a variety of the pills they've stolen. Holed up in Maria's house, several curl up on a bed, hugging soft toys, unaware of the soldiers stealthily making their way through the rooms. The blades slash flesh offscreen but the blood splashes into view. Its restraint makes it all the more shocking. The downfall of Maria's family doesn't have the same impact. After all, for the white colonialists, it's all over. For the native inhabitants the agony continues.