White Material

Maria Vial is a white French farmer who runs (with her ex-husband, Andre, and his sickly father Henri) a failing coffee plantation in an unnamed African country in the present day. Maria and Andre have a lazy, mentally unstable son, Manuel. Andre also has a half-African son, Jose. Civil war has broken out and rebel soldiers, many of them child soldiers, are advancing on the area.

The French military, while pulling out, makes a final plea for Maria to leave, but she is unyielding in her desire to protect her family's home and ignores the warnings. Meanwhile, a rebel DJ on the radio urges the rebels on and advocates attacks on emblems of colonialism. Maria's workers flee for fear of the upcoming conflict. Maria stubbornly refuses to abandon the plantation and its harvest, which will be ready in five days. Risking her life and unable to find Andre, she drives to a village to hire men to finish harvesting the coffee. On the way, she is forced to pay off bandits who threaten to kill her at a roadblock. After hiring the workers, she stops at the elementary school and collects Andre's mixed-race son, Jose. Jose is an upbeat boy of about 12, and we later learn that his mother is the young housekeeper working for Andre's father.

Meanwhile, Andre is in town meeting with the African mayor, Cherif. Cherif, seeing that Andre is desperate, takes advantage of the situation and offers to purchase the plantation in exchange for cancelling off Andre's debts. Cherif requires Andre to get his father to sign over the coffee plantation to him. Having returned to the plantation, Maria searches for her son Manuel and finds him in bed after midday. Trying to rouse him, she laments his listlessness and scolds that he is without purpose. Manuel rises, and after a swim, is intrigued by a noise in the house. He follows it to two young rebels. They run, and in spite of his lack of shoes, Manuel follows them far from the home. They eventually corner him; he discovers that they're armed with a spear and a machete. The rebel children threaten him, cut his hair, and retreat to the bush, firing shots from a revolver. Maria, Andre, and some workers converge on Manuel and are shocked to find him stripped and standing naked in the field. Maria loads him in the tractor and heads back to the house. Manuel, obviously traumatized and out of his mind, abandons the tractor and goes to his grandfather's home. There the heavily tattooed Manuel reacts to his assault by shaving his head, stealing his grandfather's shotgun, attacking his grandfather's housekeeper, and disappearing on his mother's motorbike.

Despite Andre's continued pleas to flee, Maria remains determined to bring in the coffee crop. She discovers the wounded rebel hero known as 'The Boxer' in a barn and feeds him. As night falls, the workers bed down and Maria falls asleep dreaming of an earlier evening. She is discussing Manuel with Cherif in what appears to be a romantic situation fueled by marijuana. Cherif warns her that her son is 'half-baked', a statement that makes her laugh. She awakens and attempts to start work again. However, the radio issues reports that the Boxer is being harbored by "foreigners" and that loyal citizens should oppose them. Her workers, hearing this, demand to be paid immediately. Upon threat, Maria opens the safe to find that the money is gone, likely taken by Andre to secure passage out of the country. Gun at her head, Maria submits to a demand to drive the workers back to the village.

Before they can reach the village, they are stopped by a band of young rebels who appear to be wearing her clothing and jewelry. The rebels demand the truck and, when a worker protests that they are just poor villagers, the rebels shoot him and drive off, leaving Maria by the roadside. Maria discovers they have looted the pharmacy and killed the doctor and his assistant. As the rebels drive the truck down the road, they are pursued by Manuel, who tells them that he knows where the Boxer is. He leads them back to the plantation, where he helps the rebels loot his own family's food store. The rebels and Manuel gorge themselves on the food and take the many pharmaceutical products that they have stolen. Almost all pass out in and around the house.

Government troops retake control of the area. They slip onto the plantation grounds, immediately in front of Andre's father, who calls out no warning to anyone inside. The troops move from room to room, slitting the throats of the child rebels who are passed out from the orgy of food and drugs. The troops lock the gun-toting Manuel in one of the farm buildings and burn him to death. Andre is shown dead on the floor of the house and holding the family passports.

In town Maria is overwrought. She is seeking a way back to the house when Cherif sees her and gives her a ride. At the plantation Maria finds Manuel's charred body. Andre's father is shown walking around the barn where Manuel was burned. Maria kills Andre's father with a machete.

At the end, one rebel leaves the area with the wounds to his head. He carries the beret of the Boxer. He tucks it into his trousers and continues into the countryside.

• Isabelle Huppert as Maria Vial
• Christopher Lambert as André, her ex-husband
• Nicolas Duvauchelle as Manuel, their son
• Isaach de Bankolé as "The Boxer"
• Adèle Ado as Lucie
• Michel Subor as André's father
• William Nadylam as Chérif, the mayor
• David Gozlan as Hamudi

Filming was done in Foumban, Cameroon and in the Department of Noun.