Bird's Eye View

White Material: An Interview with Claire Denis

Claire Denis is a Director and Screenwriter. She was born in Paris and raised in Africa. White Material  stars Isabelle Huppert , a coffee plantation owner who stands firm and refuses to abandon her harvest.  Birds Eye View caught up with Claire to talk about it.

LA: White Material sees a return to Africa for you – it’s beautiful and devastating – what brought you back?
 
CD: Oh, actually I am going there often. No, I think this project with Isabelle was really meant to be in Africa,  it was in the substance of the story – it was about white people and non white people and so that was it. But, to bring me back to Africa – I need only a plane! I think it is not a sentimental film, it is more a political film, I think.

LA: You co-wrote the screenplay with Marie NDiaye – the first black woman to win France’s leading literary prize, the Goncourt. You usually write with the same person and Marie on her own – how did that work?

She is a famous writer, she is a great writer and it was great, yes. We knew each other and we were pen friends and I would write letters to her, but there was no project of working together. Then, when this project came through from Isabelle and when Isabelle insists on me considering this and that, I told my Producer that maybe it was a good way to work with Marie. Her father is from Africa, although she knows not much of Africa, so in a way I thought the mixing of her and me and Isabelle was right.

Claire Denis

LA: It’s also the first time you have worked with Isabelle Huppert – what was it like working with her?

CD: Really, thrilling. Really nice – I enjoyed it very much. I enjoyed it. And, we have been waiting too long, I guess.

LA: She is so tiny and fragile and her character, Maria Vial a coffee plantation owner, so strong and determined – refusing to face up to the life threatening danger around her and her family. I was proud but also quite infuriated with her at the same time -  do you think this makes her less sympathetic to the audience – or more human?

CD: I have no idea, I think she is a mixture. For us, when we started writing the script she was not a very sympathetic character, but I think by writing about her,  we understood that what was unsympathetic – could also be a drawback, a flaw, weakness – that she was fighting for something with a stubbornness, and also something brave. So there was a mix of two – and I don’t like it when a character is only one thing you know.

LA: Just as the country is broken and full of conflict – there is also fracture all around her. Her ex-husband, without her knowing arranges the family’s escape to France, their son has lost it and her workers flee. Do you think this makes Maria  – especially as a woman, more determined to fix things?

CD: Maybe, maybe. I think she is also the only one who seems to have a sort of ideal to finish something. Nobody is working and nobody really is interested. Her ex-husband wants to run away – I mean there is a sort of detachment, as if those people that have been living through that plantation for three generations and suddenly it was, let’s go, and she is not like that, she thinks it is not worthless.  If she keeps going it will be valuable, and that’s feminine I think.

LA: Throughout the film Maria is dressed rather masculine and appears at least to be in control – but then when the Boxer comments positively on her appearance, she gets into a pink dress and puts on lipstick. She then loses the little control she had. It’s like being feminine and allowing herself to be beautiful, weakens her  – was this your intention?

CD: I think it’s not only the presence of the Boxer. She knows that the second day is going to be hard , she doesn’t know, of course the Boxer is there, but she also knows something, if she doesn’t look strong and fresh, it’s like a shield also, that fragile little dress, she needs that. It’s not, I think to seduce the Boxer, or to be more feminine, I think it’s to be strong. She puts lipstick on to appear to people, like, OK, I am determined, you know, I am not going to be surrendering.

LA: Do you think White Material is a true reflection of the attitude of some French expatriates on African soil?

CD: I think, yes, but not French, I would say White. Let’s be very honest, in the time of colonial there was a difference between this and that, but this film it’s not so French, it’s white. It’s about white person.

LA: What’s next for Claire Denis?

To go home! Working on different projects,  but I’m not ready to shoot now.

White Material is out on Friday. Show your support for Claire Denis and women filmmakers by going to see it. For more information, visit our First Weekenders page