Chocolat (1988)

Chocolat is a French film first released in 1988, directed by Claire Denis.  The film stars Isaach De Bankolé, Giulia Boschi, François Cluzet, Jean-Claude Adelin and Laurent Arnal.  It has also been released under the title: Chocolate.  Our overall rating for this film is: good.


A young French woman makes a return visit to the Cameroons where she grew up as a young girl in the 1950s.  She remembers her childhood, living in a French outpost amid the wild African landscape.  Her father worked as a petty official whilst her mother stayed at home, waited on by a servant boy.

With this visually stunning and highly evocative depiction of life in a remote outpost of the dwindling French empire, Claire Denis established herself as one of the most influential directors of her generation.  Her first film, it is probably her most personal, drawing on her own experiences and her intense love of the Dark Continent.

The most powerful aspect of the film is the way it manages to capture the suppressed humiliation and frustration of the African servant boy, Protée, capably played by Isaach De Bankolé.  Intentionally or not, this provides a stark metaphor for the ignominy that the French colonists inflicted on the African natives and belies the frustrated pride that is such a strong part of the African psyche.

Although there is much to commend in this film, its lack of strong narrative and strong central characters could be off-putting to many cinema-goers unfamiliar with Denis’ style of cinema.  The film can best be thought of as a leisurely, unhurried jeep ride through the African countryside, to a time when racial attitudes were very different to our own.  The film does not go out of its way to shock us, but we are gently reminded how self-destructive any society based on racist divisions can become.

© James Travers 2001

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