Chocolat
My husband often tries to get me to watch NetFlix or Amazon Prime
movies with him, and sometimes we find something I had been wanting to
watch or we find a surprise. We watched Chocolat the other night, a
film that I often saw referenced in other reviews.
One could just watch this movie as a charming fairy tale, get a warm fuzzy feeling, love to look at beautiful Juliette Binoche, and move on. I can't do that about this film. That is not to say I didn't enjoy it. I did. The acting was very good and the sets pretty, and I didn't get bored. But I also got bothered.
Not so much in defense of Catholicism but in defense of traditional Christianity, I was bothered by the disrespecting of Lent, both by the Comte (Molina) who makes it a legalistic practice, and by the chocolatier (Binoche), who aggresively tempts them away from their Lenten practice.
It seemed that Binoche's character was essentially a practitioner of witchcraft. She tempts people to enjoy the spell of her special chocolate even when it's not good for them. Even when she knows Judi Dench's character is diabetic, she doesn't stop Judi from eating whatever she wants. It is her heritage to do so, in the logic of the story. Her mother bewitched her father and left him as mysteriously as she showed up. (Her mother was too European-looking to be Mayan, by the way). With her own mother she traveled like a gypsy to spread the magic of her chocolate infused with chili (which in itself begs the question, how does she get her utensils around and who is her supplier?) and now she takes her daughter around, but in a rare human moment, she admits her daughter is unhappy.
This is perhaps a flaw in the story telling of the film; she is above humanity for most of the film and oblivious of the foibles around her, and only at the end because of Johnny Depp, I guess, does she start to be like a real woman who isn't perfect in every way for the plot of the story.
The Comte, her adversary, is repressed from lack of sex and food is a stand-in for that; he resists food while fasting for Lent but finally gives in. After that scene, I was nauseated. The very thought of chocolate is disgusting for me. But he is not a bad person, and the film doesn't entirely portray him that way. He is rejected by his wife; he also feels it is duty to keep tradition alive. He sees her as a temptress and immoral woman, but he also wants to rescue the abusive husband.
I suppose I am just not enlightened enough to enjoy this movie as a freeing of the human spirit. Yesterday I was driving home from Atlanta and got to hear an NPR story on the fiftieth anniversary of the Fiddler on the Roof. Tradition and community are central to our humanity; modernity has discarded them. That is the theme of Fiddler, but the theme of Chocolat is that tradition is stifling and inhumane.
One could just watch this movie as a charming fairy tale, get a warm fuzzy feeling, love to look at beautiful Juliette Binoche, and move on. I can't do that about this film. That is not to say I didn't enjoy it. I did. The acting was very good and the sets pretty, and I didn't get bored. But I also got bothered.
Not so much in defense of Catholicism but in defense of traditional Christianity, I was bothered by the disrespecting of Lent, both by the Comte (Molina) who makes it a legalistic practice, and by the chocolatier (Binoche), who aggresively tempts them away from their Lenten practice.
It seemed that Binoche's character was essentially a practitioner of witchcraft. She tempts people to enjoy the spell of her special chocolate even when it's not good for them. Even when she knows Judi Dench's character is diabetic, she doesn't stop Judi from eating whatever she wants. It is her heritage to do so, in the logic of the story. Her mother bewitched her father and left him as mysteriously as she showed up. (Her mother was too European-looking to be Mayan, by the way). With her own mother she traveled like a gypsy to spread the magic of her chocolate infused with chili (which in itself begs the question, how does she get her utensils around and who is her supplier?) and now she takes her daughter around, but in a rare human moment, she admits her daughter is unhappy.
This is perhaps a flaw in the story telling of the film; she is above humanity for most of the film and oblivious of the foibles around her, and only at the end because of Johnny Depp, I guess, does she start to be like a real woman who isn't perfect in every way for the plot of the story.
The Comte, her adversary, is repressed from lack of sex and food is a stand-in for that; he resists food while fasting for Lent but finally gives in. After that scene, I was nauseated. The very thought of chocolate is disgusting for me. But he is not a bad person, and the film doesn't entirely portray him that way. He is rejected by his wife; he also feels it is duty to keep tradition alive. He sees her as a temptress and immoral woman, but he also wants to rescue the abusive husband.
I suppose I am just not enlightened enough to enjoy this movie as a freeing of the human spirit. Yesterday I was driving home from Atlanta and got to hear an NPR story on the fiftieth anniversary of the Fiddler on the Roof. Tradition and community are central to our humanity; modernity has discarded them. That is the theme of Fiddler, but the theme of Chocolat is that tradition is stifling and inhumane.
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