Chocolat (1988)

Director:

Claire Denis

Writers:

Claire Denis (writer)
Jean-Pol Fargeau (writer)

Release Date:

May 1989 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A young French woman returns to the vast silence of West Africa to contemplate her childhood days in a colonial outpost in Cameroon...

Plot Keywords:

Africa | Cameroon | 1950s | Interracial Relationship | Female Director

Awards:

2 nominations

Cast

Isaach De Bankolé	...	Protée
Giulia Boschi	...	Aimée Dalens
François Cluzet	...	Marc Dalens
Jean-Claude Adelin	...	Luc
Laurent Arnal	...	Machinard
Jean Bediebe	...	Prosper
Jean-Quentin Châtelain	...	Courbassol
Emmanuelle Chaulet	...	Mireille Machinard
Kenneth Cranham	...	Boothby
Jacques Denis	...	Joseph Delpich
Cécile Ducasse	...	France enfant / France, as a girl
Clementine Essono	...	Marie-Jeanne
Didier Flamand	...	Capt. Védrine
Essindi Mindja	...	Blaise
Donatus Ngala

Also Known As:

Chocolat - Verbotene Sehnsucht (West Germany)
Chocolate (International: English title)

Runtime:

105 min

Country:

France | West Germany | Cameroon

Language:

French | English

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Australia:M | Iceland:L | West Germany:0 (f) | Singapore:M18 | USA:PG-13

Filming Locations:

Cameroon

Company:

Caroline Productions

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Cinemania (2002)

For use in high school classes

My 3rd-year French classes always enjoyed this film very much. In a multi-cultural, inner-city high school, the film provided many subjects for discussion (in French in class, but I know a lot of discussion went on in English after class). The most obvious is the relationship between Protée and Aimée compared to the one between Protée and France.

I always mentioned that I felt this film had one of the "sexiest" scenes I had ever seen in a movie. One year, a 17-year-old African-American shouted, "Yes!" when he figured out the scene: the one where Protée is helping Aimée lace up her evening dress, all the while both are examining the reflection of the other in the mirror. Directors use the "mirror technique" when then want to focus on the inner conflict on the part of one or more character in a scene: this is a perfect example of the technique, and it is "sexy".

Most students had trouble understanding the end of the film. One suggested that one theme of the movie was "Africanism", and that no matter how much one loved Africa or Africans, one cannot "become" African (like the driver tried to do): one must BE African.