The first HKIFF film today is a French production, a one time Versailles of the film industry but has since lost quite a bit of its lustre. But tradition is tradition. You never quite lose it. Claire Denis has put a novel perspective on the lone battle of an ex-colonial of the "weaker" sex in the last days of its retreat from Africa. Her family has established a coffee plantation "Cafe Vial" for three generation. Black anarchist "revolutionaries" using terrorists and extortionist tactics were gradually taking over the territory and the native "Government" was increasingly ineffective against the rising tide of African "nationalism" and making its running impossibly difficult. The French air force was dropping leaflets from a helicopter and sent its officers to notify her that the French government is advising its citizen to leave the territory. Her ex-husband Andre was counselling selling it and returning to France,where he was already remarried to a black woman. Her ailing father who originally wanted to stay put because he was too old to go anywhere, eventually also gave up. Her son with Andre who was losing hope, abandoned school and refused to do anything. But when he was robbed and had even his clothes taken off and left naked in the hillslope near their family farm, he acted. He shaved off his hair, took a gun from his grandpa and led a group of young black children and teenage "revolutionaries" to ransack the family larder. In the meantime, Maria played by Isabelle Huppert, held out and fought on, singlehandedly. All the men had become what the blacks were calling the whites, "yellow dogs". This was foreshadowed by the opening image of the film, when some dogs were shown running across the screen from right to left, in darkness, their shape becoming visible only briefly when they passed through a spot of light!
The film proper opened with a thin French woman, walking alone in a field, trying to get on to a bus to the town because she needed some supplies for her plantation, some medicine for her father. There was no more place. A black man sitting on the roof of the van offered to squeeze out a space for her. She tried to get up but there was really not enough space. So she hopped on, holding on to the metal ladder at the back of the van, her feet on the lowest rung. When she reached town, she went to her usual pharmacy. There was a guard posted outside and she was asked to pay in cash by the black nurse who appeared very friendly to her. But she said that in view of the situation, their policy had changed. The next time she went to the pharmacy, the pharmacist was lying in a pool of blood on the ground. Anyway, when she returned to her plantation in a military truck, a French military helicopter was flying over her head. She was asked to evacuate, for her own good. She kicked on one of the boxes of survival kits being dropped from the air upon her plantation and she asked where everyone's nerves had gone! Her workers too were also leaving en masse. She pleaded with them to stay. But few did. The only one who did said that it was not because he did not want to leave but only because her daughter was so sick that she would not survive any jounrey. The woman was desperate. But she would not give up. She went to town again. She was stopped by the government army in a road block. She was asked how much she paid to the rebels. She said 100 dollars or thereabouts. But the Governemnt army wanted only 10! And the Government army officer blamed her. He said it was people like her who made the rebels strong! She reached town and got hold of one of his former foremen. A price was agreed. He brought along a truckload of workers back to the farm because it was harvest time. On the way back, she was asked for toll money again, but this time, it was the "revolutionary people's militia". She tried to bargain down the price but had a gun pointed at her head. She paid, the corner of her lips tilted up, her eyes first down then up in a straight stare. She returned, got the harvest going, the machines started.
In the meantime, some one stole into her apartment and when his son was taking a bath in the garden pool, his returning saw two young Africans with a machete and a lance lurking amongst the bush close by the pool, eyeing him and awaiting their chance. He shouted. They ran away. Then the next day, they sneaked into their house again, washed their feet in the bathtub, leaving dirt there and then stole the necklace she placed on top of the clothes cabinet after she returned from town the previous day and on their way out, they snatched a chicken and held it by its feet, oblivious to its crowing all the way as they made their escape. His son heard something, went out, sawing the fleeing African boys and gave chase but had his feet gashed by some sharp rock on the way. He continued, but was met by a gang of black revolutionary rebels with guns and machetes. One of them cut a lock of his hair. After he smelt it, he threw it away and called him a "yellow dog", stripped him of all clothes and possession and left him standing by a tree. He was later discovered by some of the workers his mother brought in. That was a shock to her son, who then decided that it was no longer worth defending the farm and probably for survival, joined causes with the rebels. He shaved off his hair, took his grandpa's rifle and some rounds of bullets. He had to survive! In the meantime, her husband was in the house of the head of the local government. He wanted her husband to sell their family farm to him and told him that the worth of the farm would decrease by the day and that he had little choice in the matter because the Government would not be able to protect him any more. He however had a personal militia. He returned home and tried to talk to his wife but she would have none of it.
The situation was getting worse. She discovered a de-skinned goat's head amongst the coffee bean waiting to be de-husked. It was a warning signal. She buried it by quickly digging a hole with her bare hands and covered it over with some dead grass. But her ex-husband found that out when he saw scratches and dirt on her hands. He asked her if she knew what that really meant. She said people should not submit to terror. Then suddenly the machine for washing the coffee bean stopped. Some one had cut her power line. But she would not be intimiated. She turned on the emergency power generator and continued to work. But her workers refused to work any more. They wanted out because they feared for their own lives for working for the white people. Despite their bargain, they wanted to quit immediately and get their pay, in cash! . She went to the safe. It was empty. Some one had taken the money. The maid denied any knowledge of it. It must have been a member of her own family.
Then the final straws were the moments when she learned that her father had with the connivance of her ex-husband, signed away the title deeds of their family plantation and his son bringing in the young revolutionaries to loot her larder. They were burning her house. She knew that it was all over. She hacked her own dad to death. It was a bloody end to her struggles. She could not stand being betrayed by one of her own. Perhaps she did not want her own father to die at the hands of the black terrorists. We do not know why. The plantation was her her home, her family tradition, her reputation, her life's work , her personal identity and her life. Isabelle Huppert was superb as Maria. She brought this defiant woman with a will of iron alive. The title was the black man's term for jewels. Maria was that jewel. She had guts. She would not yield to terror nor to threat of violence. But she could not fight the corruption from the depths of her own family. That was too much. But she herself was on two minds about the "revolution" taking place around her. She sheltered a wounded military officer thought of by the people as a hero, the "boxer". Perhaps that was a just a gesture of friendship: a purely personal matter. The situation was complicated, as always, with life. Is the director praising her? Is she criticizing her for her stubbornness, her blindness to what is happening around her? Is it that blindness and that stubbornness which led to her divorce and her estrangemnet from her son?
This is a powerful film. But I do think that the director overplayed the close ups. He would always focus on the face of the characters, even while they were moving around. Thus there was a dizzying turning of the camera angle as huge images move from one side of the screen to another and back, which is literally dizzying. I didn't want a headache. So I left my seat at row 10 and saw the rest of about 90% of the film standing at the back of the cinema! The sound was also well done. The mounting tension was enhanced by the comments of a black DJ on the local radio, playing CDs and urging the people to fight for their rights, for justice and for the re-distribution of wealth, with his gratuitously slick comments on the slightest pretext based on the title of the songs he played in the air. This added a sinister undertone to the film. The music which was supposed to lighten the mood of terror and violence, merely served to add a further layer to it: latent verbal violence. It was the violence of the woman's determination to hold on to her plantation, despite everything which led to the final violent conclusion. Violence always begets violence, irrespective of its particular form!
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