On New Year’s Eve, before the final strike of 2008 I watched Chocolat on TV. I remember seeing the movie posters in cinemas around my hometown in 2000 but I did not go to the cinema to see it then.
A Tasty Movie
My advice if you intend to watch this movie: it is compulsory to have a piece of chocolate at hand, to start chewing. The movie will open your appetite for it, be it solid or liquid chocolate, cold or hot.
The chocolaterie is a sort of “commercial” heaven in that little village, where people come to drown their chagrin with a cup of hot chocolate and make peace with themselves and the others.
The Perfect Romantic Comedy
The chocolate will become addictive for those who taste it, even if the mayor and the priest try to keep the people away from the shop. Little by little chocolate will conquer the honest citizens who will then had to confess their sinful choices.
Juliette Binoche is a chocolate-maker devil with red shoes and a daughter. She and her shop will change people and make their world a better place. Dame Judi Dench plays wonderfully the role of a grandmother deprived by her grandson. And nobody can ignore Johnny Depp who is a nomad and a bohemian, playing the guitar and conquering the chocolate lady.
The end of the movie comes with a relief, because it has a peaceful and tasteful end: people get along well with each other and they all adopt chocolate as a treat, without feeling guilty. The chocolate is more powerful than the religion that the priest preaches or the laws the vicomte wants to impose.
Thus being said, rent or buy your Chocolat and a chocolate bar.
