Chocolat (2000)
Director:
Lasse Hallström
Tagline:
« A comic fable from the director of “The Cider House Rules”. »
Actors:
Comte de Reynaud
Caroline Clairmont
Luc Clairmont
Jean-Marc Drou
Francoise Drou
Rating:
(211’027 votes)
(211’027 votes)
Quotes:
« Pere Henri: I'm not sure what the theme of my homily today ought to be. Do I want to speak of the miracle of Our Lord's divine transformation? Not really, no. I don't want to talk about His divinity. I'd rather talk about His humanity. I mean, you know, how He lived His life, here on Earth. His *kindness*, His *tolerance*… Listen, here's what I think. I think that we can't go around… measuring our goodness by what we don't do. By what we deny ourselves, what we resist, and who we exclude. I think… we've got to measure goodness by what we *embrace*, what we create… and who we include.
»
« Serge Muscat: We are still married, in the eyes of God.
»
« Josephine Muscat: Then He must be blind.
»
« Vianne: [to the Comte de Reynaud] Ah, good morning. Can I interest you in some nipples of Venus?
»
Trailer:
Chocolat
Runtime:121 minutes
Plots:
Single mother Vianne Rocher and her young daughter arrive in a rural French town in the winter of 1959, and open an unusual chocolate shop that disrupts the moral fiber of the strictly Catholic townsfolk and mayor.
It’s early 1959 in a provincial French village, where residents know their place, and if they see something against the unspoken rules, they are to look the other way. The only exception to this rule is the Mayor, le Comte de Reynaud, who is seen as the town’s moral authority, even more so than Pere Henri, the new young Catholic priest whose sermons are vetted by le Comte. Literally blowing into town is free spirit Vianne Rocher and her adolescent daughter Anouk Rocher, who move from place to place wherever the north wind takes them. Renting the long empty space that used to house the patisserie, the property owned by elderly Armande Voizin, Vianne instead opens a chocolaterie which none of the residents are aware of until it opens. While Vianne, through the chocolaterie, is able to help certain residents in exposing some of the village’s hidden ills, she nonetheless raises the ire of le Comte in almost everything about her being: that she is promoting the indulgence of chocolate in the season of Lent, a period of abstinence and penitence; that she does not attend church; and that she has never been married meaning that Anouk is illegitimate. Vianne is viewed in an even less flattering light when she takes up with Roux, the lead of a band of self-confessed river rats floating into town, he, who like Vianne, is a nomadic free spirit. The questions become who between Vianne and le Comte will outlast the other or come to an understanding of the errors of their ways to be able to live in harmony with the other.
When single mother Vianne Rocher (Juliette Binoche) and her six-year-old daughter, Anouk (Victoire Thivisol) move to rural France and open a chocolate shop, with Sunday hours, across the street from the local church, they are met with some skepticism. But as soon as they coax the townspeople into enjoying their delicious products, they are warmly welcomed.
