Grey Tarmac. Cloud of Dust.

Over breakfast we share some witty banter.
“Why do Marxists drink Green Tea?” my friend asks.
“Because Proper-tea is theft!” say I.
We laugh about it, don Mugabe masks, and go to the cinema to watch Claire Denis’ White Material.

We felt that Mugabe should be there. Or perhaps we felt that he was there, along with a murder of ZANUPF crows, big on the front rows, with tall hats on, so that nobody could see the movie.

I’m not mistakenly thinking that the nameless African country of White Material, is modeled on Zimbabwe. It is,
we assume, based on the Cameroon of Denis’ childhood. Besides, “its neither,” and “its not the point” and all of that. But, equally, it is for everybody watching this movie in our country.

The movie in fact is about a woman who has the power to ignore chaos. She glides like Katherine Hepburn (Isabella Huppert is our Katherine Hepburn) into absolute catastrophe.

This is a stunning movie. I should say that now. The cinematography is clean and stylish and stately as a galleon. The narrative builds and builds with grueling inevitability, like Cuckoo’s Nest, or a Just William story. Its that thing were you can see the hurricane on the horizon for the whole drive. You sit in front of the screen half wanting it all to go away, half not being able to tear your eyes from the screen. Huppert is imperious, but that’s hardly worth mentioning by this stage in her career.

Also, this film deserves to be more than a human interest story, New Internationalist tittle-tattle.

I’m not saying that I wish Denis had been less deliberate or precise about the location of her movie. As I say, perhaps Denis genuinely didn’t know what her film was about. But that’s all basically irrelevant. We sat in that little cinema, with forty-seven other people, all thinking that we were watching Animal Farm, all watching Animal Farm, and none of us watching this very ambitious, and wise and elegant movie.

This evening, I’ll cook pasta for my friends. It’s easy to do, but it still feels special. If you’re in the neighbourhood, don’t be a stranger.