the DVD, “[a] nightmare from which no one awakes [...] in a nameless African country teetering on the brink of an all-out civil war.” At the center of this “nightmare” is Isabelle Huppert, who brings extraordinary physicality to the role of Maria Vial, mother of a shiftless teenage son and manager of a coffee plantation belonging to her ex-in-laws. Her story flashes back and forth over a span of some forty-eight hours that begin with the military flying over to drop survival supplies and exhort her to flee. Her workers leave, her ex-husband, played by Christophe Lambert, schemes to sell the plantation to an African official, and anonymous child soldiers pose a persistent threat. Meanwhile, Maria clings desperately to the place she loves, doggedly insisting that she needs just one more week, then the coffee will be ready. As this unfolds, le Boxeur, a charismatic rebel hero brilliantly portrayed by Isaach de Bankolé, finds his way onto the plantation, where Maria periodically tends to him in his final hours. The film ends in a state of anarchic horror depicted with the kind of visceral cinematography we have come to expect from Denis, an experience that will leave no viewer indifferent. As Huppert notes in her interview on the DVD, “tout a son importance” in Denis’s œuvre. White Material is no exception. Everything in the film seems to be exactly as it should, from the cinematography and lighting to the costuming and script, which Denis co-wrote with Marie NDiaye. Huppert and Bankolé, whose credits include Protée in Chocolat, deliver powerful performances, as do the local actors, especially those playing the child soldiers, a particularly compelling aspect of the film. Denis skillfully underscores the disturbing nature of their existence by emphasizing their childishness even more than their crimes, in large part through the mise en scène. The child soldiers’ musical theme, one of three primary musical motifs, further highlights this dichotomy between innocence and horror. Indeed, the entire score, composed by Tindersticks, suits the film perfectly, with haunting strains that help establish the tone for every character, every scene. In White Material, whose title refers to both the Europeans’ possessions and the transformation of said Europeans into disposable objects, nothing is overstated. Instead, the audience must interpret what they see and hear, as well as imagine back stories to which there are limited clues. As with Denis’s other films, White Material rewards the attentive viewer, and it will doubtless occupy a place of note in the filmography of one of France’s most talented contemporary directors. University of the Cumberlands (KY) Laura Dennis PALMER, TIM. Brutal Intimacy: Analyzing Contemporary French Cinema. Middletown CT: Wesleyan UP, 2011. ISBN 978-0-8195-6827-4. Pp. 286. $28.95. Aspiring to broaden the canon of contemporary (i.e., twenty-first century) French cinema, Tim Palmer, “cineliterate” and revisionist, has created a denselywritten , generally jargon-free volume replete with informative detail and provocative analyses. Focusing on aspects he considers less-known or neglected, of necessity he ventures away from the mainstream and into “fringe” areas. To examine productively what he finds there he eschews the traditional critical approach (antiquated and no longer useful) that distinguishes art-house (auteur) fare from commercial, endeavoring instead to analyze films on their own terms. This approach leads him to emphasize style and cinematic design over themes. Reviews 935 Brutal Intimacy opens with “The Contemporary French Film Ecosystem,” a helpful roadmap to what follows and an overview of the process and pitfalls of filmmaking in France; and concludes with “Instructive Cinephilia: Film Literacy and la Fémis,” an instructive look at the program and educational orientation of the elite state-funded film school that has formed the craft and cineliteracy of many of the young directors discussed in this study (the appendix listing the school’s 156 must-see films provides intriguing reading). Four central chapters, whose titles indicate their focus, are each constructed around discussions of factors relevant to contextualizing the topic at hand, followed by analyses of representative films. Within the frame of what Palmer deems the unique systematic emphasis in France on débutants filmmakers and the amount of...