![White Material (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] (2009)](/wp_content/uploads/2011/04/51lCZBQ92L._SL500_AA300__150x150.jpg "White Material (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] (2009)")
WHITE MATERIAL (2009, Blu-ray released April 12, 2011 – MSRP $39.95)
| MOVIE: |
  |
| VIDEO: |
 |
| AUDIO: |
|
| EXTRAS: |
|
| BLU-RAY: |
|
White Material suggests through its setting and events that it will offer commentary on the struggles of native Africans and those colonials who are being forced out of the countries they’ve come to call home. But filmmaker Claire Denis isn’t interested in preaching about sociopolitical injustice, instead choosing to focus her lens on a single passionate woman and her descent into desperate madness.
- “In White Material, the great contemporary French filmmaker Claire Denis, known for her restless, intimate dramas, introduces an unforgettably crazed character. Played by a ferocious Isabelle Huppert, Maria is an entitled white woman living in Africa, desperately unwilling to give up her family’s crumbling coffee plantation despite the civil war closing in on her. Created with Denis’ signature full-throttle visual style, which places the viewer at the center of the maelstrom, White Material is a gripping evocation of the death throes of European colonialism and a fascinating look at a woman lost in her own mind.“
White Material turned out to be a very different film than I was expecting. Denis doesn’t contend with issues of race or comment on the social changes afoot in the nameless French-speaking African nation of White Material. The government is collapsing, gangs threaten to take what they will (and do) while a growing faction of (very young) rebels close in. There’s no specific time or place here and therefore no direct context to give the film weight. But Denis isn’t bothered. It’s the stubborn struggle of Maria Vial that interests her – the character’s love for her adopted country, the broken-family unit she holds together, the coffee plantation she labours tirelessly to save in the face of imminent collapse. This is the story of a desperate woman, living in a perpetual state of denial, whose efforts to maintain possessions ultimately keep her from having anything at all. With it’s challenging narrative structure and surprise ending the film can prove to be more work than some care to put forth but rest assured the more attentive you are, the more White Material will reward you.
White Material arrives on Blu-ray sporting a gorgeous new high-def transfer supervised and approved by Denis and her photographer Yves Cape. Well, that’s good enough for me! Obviously they saw what I’m seeing here – stunning, saturated colours, tons of detail and killer contrast. This is a great looking disc!
From the liner notes:
- “Director Claire Denis and cinematographer Yves Cape supervised and approved this new high-definition transfer, which was created on a Spirit Datacine from a 35 mm interpositive. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches, splices, warps, jitter, and flicker were manually removed using Anti Scratch and MTI’s DRS system.“
Tindersticks‘ Stuart Staples crafted a number of beautiful pieces of music for White Material (I’m still taken aback by the gentle theme he composed for the rebel children – juxtaposing something so sympathetic over a marching army of armed soldiers is pure genius) that, for the most part, make up its score. The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track provides it a lot of dynamic headroom, while delivering clean, clear dialogue up the middle.
From the liner notes:
- “This film features a fully digital soundtrack. The audio was mastered at 24-bit from the original digital audio master files using Pro Tools HD.“
The special features on the White Material Blu-ray disc are good but far from comprehensive. This is one that really could have used a commentary track. The interviews with Denis (25-minutes) and lead actors Huppert (15-minutes) and Isaach de Bankole, the would-be leader of the rebels known as “The Boxer” (14-minutes), are great, and together provide nearly an hour of production details and anecdotes. But I found myself wanting more. Wanting a more direct connection to the film or to Denis herself.
Likewise, the 13-minute “Ecrans Noirs Film Festival, 2010” short documentary, chronicling Denis’ return to Cameroon for the 2010 premiere of White Material at the Ecrans Noirs Film Festival is frustrating. It’s a nice addition to the disc and completes the director’s journey in a lot of ways but displays Denis playing out her character’s arc as she struggles to find a way to debut her film under preferable conditions. Spoiler alert – she and the cinema-techs fail and the screening takes place via a standard-def DVD projected on a big-screen with very poor sound. I hate to say it but the whole time I was watching this doc I couldn’t help but think how she would’ve been better off waiting for this Blu-ray.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
- New digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Claire Denis and cinematographer Yves Cape (with DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
- New interviews with Denis and actors Isabelle Huppert and Isaach de Bankolé
- Short documentary by Denis on the film’s premiere at the 2010 Écrans Noirs Film Festival in Cameroon
- Deleted scene
- Theatrical trailer
- New and improved English subtitle translation
- PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by film writer Amy Taubin
Discussion
No comments for “The Criterion Collection: White Material Blu-ray Disc Review”