Themes: Culture Clash, Class Differences, Mothers and Daughters
Main Cast: Isaach de Bankolé, Giulia Boschi, François Cluzet, Jean-Claude Adelin, Cécile Ducasse
Release Year: 1988
Country: FR
Run Time: 105 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG13
Plot
Set in French Colonial Africa, Chocolat is told from the viewpoint of 8-year-old Cecile Ducasse. With no other frame of reference, the innocent Ducasse accepts the subjugation of the black natives by the white colonists as the natural order of things. The girl grows gradually aware of the social iniquities about her, but only in retrospect (the film is related in flashback, narrated by the grown-up heroine) does she fully realize just how cruel and wrong-headed the entire colonial system had been. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Before she struck out on her own, Claire Denis worked as an assistant for such A-listers as Wim Wenders, Jacques Rivette, and Jim Jarmusch. The influence of those mentors is apparent in Chocolat, Denis' debut feature, but it's the singularity of her organic vision that is most impressive. Set largely in the West African colony of Cameroon in the 1950s, Chocolat is a lush, if enigmatic, portrait of the colonial experience. In the waning days of French rule, a district officer (François Cluzet) presides over a rural outpost, living quietly with his wife, Aimée (Giulia Boschi), and little daughter, France (Cécile Ducasse). One day, the officer is called away on business, leaving Aimée and France to fend for themselves, with the aid of their houseboy, Protée (Isaach de Bankolé). A hushed drama of racial and sexual tension soon builds between Protée and Aimée, illuminating the perversion of human dynamics that colonialism breeds. Framed by the wanderings of a grown-up France (Mireille Perrier) in present-day Cameroon, Chocolat feels like an autobiographical work; the movie's sensory delights are so specific that they have the whiff of nostalgia. Its interrogation of cross-cultural dysfunction and the colonialist legacy notwithstanding, Chocolat's foremost pleasures are visceral. Denis, even at this early stage, already seems attuned to film's power to suggest and seduce. Her debut emanates the effortless sensuality and sinewy elegance that have come to mark her movies, making it a sterling introduction to her cinema of sensation. ~ Elbert Ventura, All Movie Guide
Chocolat is a 1988 film, directed by Claire Denis, about a French family that lives in colonial Cameroon. Marc and Aimée Dalens (François Cluzet and Giulia Boschi) are the parents of France (Cécile Ducasse), a young girl who befriends Protée (Isaach De Bankolé), a Cameroon native that is the family's household servant. The film was entered into the 1988 Cannes Film Festival.[1]
The film begins with an adult woman named France, walking down a road toward Douala, Cameroon. While walking, she is picked up by William J. Park (Emmet Judson Williamson), an African American who has moved to Africa and is driving to Limbe with his son. As they ride, France's mind drifts and we see her as a young girl in Northern French Cameroon where her father was a colonial administrator. The story is conducted through the eyes of young France, showing her friendship with the "houseboy", Protée, as well the sexual tension between him and her young and beautiful mother, Aimée. The conflict of the film comes from the discomfort created as France and her mother attempt to move past the established boundaries between themselves and the native Africans. This is brought to a head through Luc Segalen (Jean-Claude Adelin), a Western drifter who stays with the Dalens family after a small aircraft crashes nearby. He makes public the evident sexual attraction between Aimée and Protée, prompting the mother to act on her desire. This results in a fight between Luc and Protée, who consequently loses his in-house job and is moved to work outdoors in the garage as a mechanic.
The title Chocolat comes from the 1950s slang meaning "to be cheated," and thus refers to the status in French Cameroon of being black and being cheated. Towards the end of the film, France's father reveals a central theme of the film as he explains to her what the horizon line is. He tells her that it is a line that is there but not there, a symbol for the racial boundary that exists in the country. This line is not a physical one but is still one that people widely recognize.
