Film Critic: Adrian Martin
Although White Material achieves the director's trademark dreamy, watery fluidity – coaxing even the worst sticklers for narrative clarity to go with the flow and ignore the strict demarcations between past and present, reality and fantasy – its structure is not half as daring as, say, that of L'intrus, where (as Raúl Ruiz would say) the images created the narrative, rather than vice versa... However, like all Denis films, White Material repays repeat viewings, and grows with them.