chocolat

Can a fairy tale be mature and still maintain whimsical innocence? Director Lasse Hallstrom
somehow pulled it off and created one of the most unique and beautiful movies in recent memory
and certainly one of the best films of the year 2000.

“Chocolat” is the story of a woman, Vianne, and her daughter Anouk. When the North Wind blows
in, she is compelled to pull up stakes and drift to another French village. She is compulsively
nomadic. When she reaches the next small village and sets up her chocolatrie, she finds herself in
a maelstrom of resistance from the Comte De Reynaud, the local nobleman who practically runs the
town and his devotion to the Catholic sacraments paints Vianne as an evil presence in the town.

From there, it’s a social war of attrition. Will Vianne be able to bring happiness, joy and peace into
the lives of these repressed people? Will her chocolate business be run out of town by the
Comte? Or will the North Wind show up and ruin everything by forcing her compulsion to leave?

The talented Juliette Binoche heads the film as Vianne, while Alfred Molina plays the troubled and
narrow-minded Comte. Top tier talent peppers the rest of the cast including Johnny Depp as Roux,
a gypsy who travels along the river and stops at the village, Carrie-Anne Moss as the Comte’s
secretary, and Judi Dench as Moss’ estranged mother and Vianne’s landlord.

Hallstrom has brilliant interwoven multiple stories that could each be whole films themselves into
one flawless cinematic painting. There is the overall conflict between Vianne and the Comte,
Vianne’s nomadic tendencies and the damage it is inflicting on her relationship with Anouk, the
prejudice of the town against the river gypsies, the estrangement of a mother and her daughter
and grandson. The list goes on and on.

All of these subplots contribute to the grand dramatic total of the overreaching story. The films
pacing isn’t frantic, but never slow. The movie takes a leisurely pace that seems to mimic the
atmosphere of village life. Simultaneously, Hallstrom infuses the aesthetic of the film with a kind of
warm serenity, with rare exception in certain scenes of heightened emotion. This film, both in
narrative and aesthetic, reaches the sublime.

Performances are universally brilliant, including the child performers, who hold their own with
Binoche, Dench and Depp. Not a small feat of acting or directing.

Oh, and there's a kangaroo in it too. Most films I've seen with kangaroos rarely disappoint. Take
my word for it.

See this film. There is nothing remotely similar to it out there. Rarely are films today completely
unique. “Chocolat” certainly is in a class all its own.