Chocolat is a beautifully acted and
photographed allegory, with more than a hint of supernaturalism in its
story, the heroine has a hint of Mary Poppins to her radical
personality, - we first see her blown in wearing a little red riding hood
style cloak, (without flight) by the North wind to a small, timeless
French village, which is run by it's Count and mayor (Alfred Molina
in what I take to be the film's finest performance) here is a town where
everyone maintains order and discipline, keeping their troubles to
themselves, a town of suppressed individuals, a town where women stand
by their men, and everyone but everyone goes to church.
The arrival of the atheistic newcomer with her illegitimate daughter,
who declines invitations to worship and who brazenly defiantly opens a
chocolaterie at the beginning of Lent sets the scene for an extraordinary
series of dramas, many of them moving in unexpected directions.
With many in the town eager to see her closed down, others give in to
temptation and sample the delights of the shop, the owner senses which
type of chocolat suits their passions best (sometimes she does this by
inviting them to look at a spinning patterned wheel and goes by the
impressions it gives them, other times she goes by raw instinct, those
taken by the chocolat give in to their passions, one woman finds new
love from her husband who has ignored her for years, (there is more than a
touch of aphrodisiac in these chocolats), there is the old man and his dog
who (man not dog) loves a n old widow who has not known love since her
husband died in the war, - the first world war, he points out, (this is the
mid 1950's) but the chocolats bring her a new union, then things get more
complex - Judy Dench appears as a regular fixture in the shop, desiring a
meeting with her grandson, as the mother in between denies them such a
meeting, and the shop comes to harbour a young passionate woman who has
fled from her husband who has a tendency to beat her up. When the Mayor
hears of her reluctance to respect his needs, he enters the shop to try
to force her to go home, until the shop-keeper makes him look at the scars
and bruises she has received from her various beatings - the mayor promptly
drags the brutal husband to church by the scruff of the neck and forces him
to confess, and then makes him attend Sunday school with the children of
the town to learn new ways.
The priest is also a great character, a newcomer to the town himself,
he finds the mayor writing his sermons for him in keeping with the ones
given by the priest before him who served the town for sixty years, the
priest has a habit of liking the new rock and roll music of the day, a
matter frowned on by the mayor.
The drunken wife-beater tries to become a new man, but his wife still
refuses to go home with him, - he tries to beat her up again, in the shop,
but he is beaten off, and goes off sulking.
The arrival of other rebels really upsets things, when river rat gypsies
(using boats as caravans) drift in, - the town quickly closes ranks to
exclude and boycott them everywhere, but the Chocolaterie still welcomes them
in - and the shop owner finds leader Johnny Depp (another great
performance) the one man who's true passions are unfathomable to her so
far unfailing powers of observation.
Judy Dench's character gets her reunion with the grandson, who comes
to the shop to paint her portrait for her, but she has a secret of her own,
she is diabetic - her liking for the chocolat is in danger of killing her, a
fact made known by the mother, who twigs what is going on at the shop, -
she wants Dench's character to go to an old folk's home to be looked
after, while Dench wants to live life to the end in some pleasure and
decadence.
After a major party to celebrate the old woman's 70th birthday, which
starts in the village and ends on the river-rat boats, effectively uniting
townsfolk and river rats despite the boycott policies, the Mayor mumbles
to the drunkard (clearly upset that his wife is now liberated towards one
of the young handsome rats) that something, and anything must be done to
resolve s the crisis at any cost. The drunkard unfortunately assumes
wrongly that this is an invitation to commit murder (Shades of Henry 2's
edict on Thomas A Beckett) and attempts to kill the passengers sleeping over
on the boats - when he conveys his deeds to the mayor he is hounded out of
town by the mayor, never to return - the mayor, (who takes Lent so
seriously that he is virtually starving himself) asked by the shop owner to
admit to the town that his wife isn't in fact in Venice, but has left him
forever, (he still keeps her chair at he church), finally gives in to his
own temptations spectacularly, - breaking in to the shop he starts to
smash the various confectioneries one by one, until a flake of chocolat
lands on his lip. Instead of wiping it away with his hand, he licks it away
and gives into his cravings and gorges himself on the shop's products
until he falls asleep in the shop window where, on Easter Sunday he wakes to
find shop-keeper and priest together to help him up. He has not yet
written the priest's sermon, but the priest now has one of his own, (a nicely
done rejection of the abstinence of lent and a recognition of the Humanism
of Christ mattering more than his divinity) the town gives in to a pagan
style carnival atmosphere (an event heralded from the beginning of the
movie) but now the shop owner has big decisions of her own to make - does
she drift with the wind to the next town (she has done this for many years0
or allow her daughter to settle down and become a part of the happiness
she has made - letting other towns sort out their own problems, - Imagine
Mary Poppins not flying off on the breeze at the end of her film, and you may
have an id