White Material by Claire Denis (review)

The book is organized by chapters, with one chapter and accompanying exercises devoted to each film. Each chapter is organized into sections that are used consistently throughout the text. The “Préparation au visionnement du film” section includes discussion questions and essential vocabulary and expressions. The next section, “Pendant le visionnement,” contains two parts: “Premier visionnement ” asks students, for example, to fill in a chart with target information or to watch the film without sound and be prepared to respond to questions about the setting, actions, or plot details; “Deuxième visionnement” instructs students to watch the film a second time with sound, if they had previously viewed it muted, and respond to true and false selections or multiple choice answers. “Allez plus loin” challenges the students further by asking them to do close readings of the narration of particular scenes for cloze vocabulary exercises. This section is omitted for films where there is no narration present. “Après le visionnement” targets more global film commentary and involves student opinions, reactions, and critique . “Devoirs: à faire!” encourages extension activities for work out of class for future discussion or required homework, but this section could potentially be added to the “Après le visionnement” if time in class were available. The award-winning short films provide relevant cultural background knowledge for students through exposure to France’s rich cinema culture. The accompanying DVD is convenient and allows for the use of subtitles when needed. This option is useful for textual reinforcement for students with comprehension problems at any level. Also, if students are asked to view the films out of class, they can potentially pause the film when needed, and view any difficult section as much as desired. The effective organization and helpful exercises in À l’écran balance a mix of global and specific tasks, and the short length of the films allows for multiple viewings, as well as less time required for lesson incorporation. All four skills are addressed, but students will greatly enhance their listening comprehension skills in a relatively short amount of dedicated lesson time while having fun with language learning and viewing films that will both entertain and spark their imagination. Ohio State University Rebecca H. Bias Film edited by Michèle Bissière DENIS, CLAIRE, réal. White Material. Int. Isabelle Huppert, Christophe Lambert, Isaach de Bankolé. Why Not, 2009. Before viewing White Material, one might suppose that it is a sequel to Claire Denis’s 1988 feature film, Chocolat, given the racial tension alluded to in the juxtaposed colors of the titles and the fact that both are set in West Africa in times of tension and transition. Yet if certain aspects of White Material were conceived during the filming of Chocolat, the two should be viewed as separate entities, as Denis explains in an interview included on the Criterion Collection DVD. While the earlier film is a frequently nostalgic remembering of the director’s childhood in Cameroon, her latest masterpiece is, as Amy Taubin explains in her essay for 934 FRENCH REVIEW 85.5 the DVD, “[a] nightmare from which no one awakes [...] in a nameless African country teetering on the brink of an all-out civil war.” At the center of this “nightmare” is Isabelle Huppert, who brings extraordinary physicality to the role of Maria Vial, mother of a shiftless teenage son and manager of a coffee plantation belonging to her ex-in-laws. Her story flashes back and forth over a span of some forty-eight hours that begin with the military flying over to drop survival supplies and exhort her to flee. Her workers leave, her ex-husband, played by Christophe Lambert, schemes to sell the plantation to an African official, and anonymous child soldiers pose a persistent threat. Meanwhile, Maria clings desperately to the place she loves, doggedly insisting that she needs just one more week, then the coffee will be ready. As this unfolds, le Boxeur, a charismatic rebel hero brilliantly portrayed by Isaach de Bankolé, finds his way onto the plantation, where Maria periodically tends to him in his final hours. The film ends in a state of anarchic horror depicted with the kind of visceral cinematography we have...