White Material – Film Review

Claire Denis – White Material (2009)

There is actually only one human race in the world, however the term race is still misperceived. Different races are created by people’s desire to oppress the weak minority to become superior. Nazis did it for Jews. Whites have been doing it for blacks in America and in French. Today some Germans do it for Turks, some Turks do it for Syrians, and so on. Race does not mean skin colour, imperialism or capitalism. It is a complex term which includes them all. Racial stereotypes vary by the context, country and region. It is directly associated with the political and economical conditions of the context. Class differences play a big role. White people have most of the land in South Africa. Thus, imperial powers make money by agriculture. Whites seem rich to blacks.

Why blacks do no like whites? Do they also behave in a racist way like the whites did? The answer is obvious when we look at the history. Rebel behaviours against white people come from their pain. The pain is much bigger than what is estimated. The white French people have been exploiting the black Africans for years. The African rebel groups take out the rage of exploitation from all whites. They do not want any white people living in their country, even people who adopted the African culture and live there peacefully. There are some believes like too much blondness brings unluckiness, blue eyes bring trouble.

There is a civil war between obedients and rebels. Some Africans are good with government’s decisions and to be colonized by French, however some Africans set against them. They are the rebels who do not want any white people in the country.

The main character of the film, Maria Vial, a white woman who lives in Africa, says “Whites… they do not deserve this beautiful country” after she rejects the last offer to leave the county. As we can see through the film, she identifies herself as an African, she feels that she belongs to African culture, however she is still a white person among the black people, she is the minority, she came there by colonist acts somehow, so she actually does not belong to the culture. She is treated as a foreigner in her country. Bandits take her money, controllers scold her by saying “This country became this way because of people like you”. By burying that head of a ram, which is an obvious death threat, she actually buries one’s head in the sand, which means she ignores the threats as André says. She continuously insists the workers to harvest the coffee. The workers do not accept to risk their life for the sake of coffee. She thereupon recruits new workers. They also want to take their money and quit immediately after learning that Maria keeps Boxer, the head of the rebels, in her home. It shows that Maria is on the rebel side. We can say that Maria’s desire was not just coffee. She thereupon recruits new workers. They also want to take their money and quit immediately after learning that Maria keeps Boxer, the head of the rebels, in her home. It shows that Maria is on the rebel side. We can say that Maria’s desire was not just coffee. She actually uses it to stay in the country. She does not want to leave Africa. Her leaving the country would mean losing the African identity and becoming depressed. That is why she was playing blind against all the bad treats even though she is aware of them.

Maria’s ex husband André, who is also a white man, is different than Maria. He wants to leave the country because he is terribly aware of the threats. He sees how those two black kids want to injure his son Manuel when he is in the pool and what they have done to him subsequently. André sees how Manuel arouses hatred just for being white. There is a belief around them: “Whites are bad people. Yes, all of them… They exploited us, now we should plunder them.” We see lots of examples of these acts in the film. The rebel kids steal Maria’s jewelries, their clothes, they eat all the medicine which was kept from them, they plunder Vial’s food store by the help of Manuel.

Manuel has a big identity problem. Although he was born and raised in Africa, people have treated him like a dog, just because he was born of two white parents. He denies his white identity by cutting his blonde hair after what happened to him. He becomes very aggressive, takes the rifle and uses violence to André’s current wife who is a black African woman. He joins the rebel groups which consist of children. He plunders their own store to prove that he is one of them, he also eats the medicine like the rebels do. He becomes a white rebel because all he wants to be accepted.

We see a radio host, who listens to reggae music on the background, encourages the rebel groups since the beginning of the film. Radio is now silenced at the end. Government now has the power. No permission for rebel acts anymore. Some rebels are killed included Manuel.

Maria sees her son’s burned body. She kills André’s father. Because he colonized this beautiful country, he broke his promise and sold the farm, he is responsible for everything. He is responsible for all the mess. He is kind of responsible for her son’s death. By killing him she actually kills the father of the colony. She kills all the pain this country went through. She is not a pro-colonialist but she is the child of the colonialists. She kills her own pain away by killing him.