White Material is illuminated by a different flame… what it's missing in sanity it has more left over in raucous sensory excitement. [Full review in Spanish]

| Aug 9, 2022

A condemnation of the self-congratulatory 21st-century European worldview that has deluded itself into thinking that racial domination and colonial structures are of the past.

| Jun 3, 2022

The cinema of Claire Denis cuts into the essential core of its subject matter with unflinching reality.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Feb 14, 2022

Granted, movies about white privilege are rarely fun, and there's no reason they should be, but [Claire] Denis is rarely so cynical.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 15, 2021

White Material is not her most abstract film yet Denis still manages to keep the film absorbing and enigmatic without ever being didactic or boring. It's definitely headier and feels more substantial than her other works.

| Mar 21, 2021

At first the story seems interesting to me and I even go so far as to pretend that it's very provocative, but I immediately admit that it lacks tension and sharpness in a matter as difficult as the one that arises. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 6/10 | Jul 24, 2020

A deeply reflective collection of moments, both of great beauty and great horror, and it continues to reveal its treasures upon repeat viewings.

| Original Score: 3.5/44 | Jun 7, 2019

Denis' construct is intentionally allegorical, and the film's classical beauty emerges more through her mastery of mood, sense of place and the ellipses in the narrative.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 1, 2019

The film's refusal to assert blame or come up with answers about Africa serves as a lesson to filmmakers. Denis paints a complex picture, one that is beguiling, ambiguous and thought provoking.

| Nov 1, 2018

Instead of sending us into the lobby provoked to debate, we leave so confused there's no point talking it over. White Material is trying hard to mean something. But what?

| Aug 9, 2018

Denis creates both sympathy for and anger at Marie. She is not a stereotypical colonial overlord, yet her insistence on remaining borders on madness.

| May 18, 2018

The consistently despairing tone is remarkable, as is Isabelle Huppert's understated and absorbing performance as a woman lost in deep-seated denial and facing an inevitable end.

| Original Score: B+ | Jan 29, 2018

Unfortunately, the screenplay is awful. It gives away the ending early on, which removes any suspense, and pointlessly plays with time so that it's hard to know what is happening when, let alone why.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 4, 2018

Dreamy and elliptical in its fractured timeline and visual lyricism, yet so searing and bloody that it's indelible.

| Aug 15, 2017

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 24, 2011

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 16, 2011

Unsentimental, brutal, and beautiful, (the film) is a harrowing experience.

| Original Score: 7/10 | May 16, 2011

a difficult film, and one that sticks with you, pestering you with its unresolved tensions

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 30, 2011

A maddening movie that gives the viewer plenty to think about, but little to care about.

| Apr 14, 2011

Director Claire Denis is known for her vivid snapshots of contemporary culture and White Material is shot with an immediacy that's hard to ignore.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 11, 2011