Chocolat

IMDb RATING

7.3/10

4.8K

YOUR RATING

A French woman returns to her childhood home in Cameroon - formerly a colonial outpost - where she's flooded by memories, particularly of Protée, her servant.

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A French woman returns to her childhood home in Cameroon - formerly a colonial outpost - where she's flooded by memories, particularly of Protée, her servant.A French woman returns to her childhood home in Cameroon - formerly a colonial outpost - where she's flooded by memories, particularly of Protée, her servant.A French woman returns to her childhood home in Cameroon - formerly a colonial outpost - where she's flooded by memories, particularly of Protée, her servant.

Director
- Claire Denis
Writers
- Claire Denis
- Jean-Pol Fargeau
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.3/10

4.8K

YOUR RATING

Director
- Claire Denis
Writers
- Claire Denis
- Jean-Pol Fargeau
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 1 win & 3 nominations total

Videos1

Trailer 2:05

Trailer

Photos98

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Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
In a 1989 interview with Judy Stone, Claire Denis explained that the title, comes from the 1950s slang meaning "to be had, to be cheated", and thus refers to the status in French Cameroon of being black and being cheated; it is also an allusion to Protée's dark-brown skin and the racial fetishism of Africans by Europeans.

Quotes
Marc Dalens: When you look at the hills, beyond the houses and beyond the trees, where the earth touches the sky, that's the horizon. Tomorrow, in the daytime, I'll show you something. The closer you get to that line, the farther it moves. If you walk towards it, it moves away. It flees from you. I must also explain this to you. You see the line. You see it, but it doesn't exist.

Connections
Featured in Siskel & Ebert & the Movies: Jacknife/The Adventures of Baron Munchausen/Skin Deep/Chocolat (1989)

User reviews29

Featured review

10/10

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.