An unconverntional and beautfiul film about the last days of colonial occupation in French-speaking Africa

Claire Denis's White Material (2009) is a tense, thoughtful, unconventional depiction of the struggles of a 40-womething woman, played by the ubiquitous Isabelle Huppert, to hang on to her family-run coffee plantation in Africa - country unnamed but the movie was shot in the French-speaking Cameroons (many beautiful scenes of the often-hostile and dangerous landscape) - during a time of political and military upheaval, as a militia of black revolutionary soldiers are in the process of seizing control of the country and in particular ownership of white-held, colonial property. Strangely, the movie begins with the plantation in ruins and Huppert confused and in despair; then we jump back in time - a few days? weeks? months? - as we see the first threats and the beginning of the uprising. The movie is often scary, as the revolutionary forces home in on the plantation and Huppert refuses to budge - even when she finds a goat's head tossed in among the harvested coffee beans, even when her power line is cut, even when a young man with a spear threans here teenage. At one point her husband abandons the cause; it wasn't clear to me, but it's possible that he actually sells the plantation or turns over the ownership anyway to a group of rebels. Huppert's doomed and valiant attempts to keep the farm running are at the heart of the narrative, and the film is unusual in building sentiment for a colonial property owner - although for the most part the rebels and other native Africans are portrayed with some sympathy and Huppert is portrayed as ice-cold and indifferent to the fate and safety or her family members and of the few employees who stay on with her during the crisis. She's brave, but she's fighting a lost cause. A key element in the film is H's relationship with her severely troubled son, a completely feckless character who, under stress, acts in an increasingly bizarre and self-destructive manner. I found the end of the film somewhat confusing, hard to make sense of a mysterious character called "the Boxer"  who dies on the plantation (we see that in the first scene). I'm curious about the reception of this film in France and in Africa, whether politically aware viewers (most people likely to see this film) were troubled by the largely sympathetic portrayal of a colonial property holder reluctant to give up her control and privilege; I'l probably watch the short documentary Denis shot about the film's premiere in the Cameroons for some insight on this.