"Chocolat" (2000)

How is it possible that Chocolat (2000) is twenty-five years old now?  Wow.  I remember hanging a magazine ad for it on my dorm room wall.  I didn't manage to see it in the theater, but some college friends and I rented it as soon as it came to video, and if I hadn't already been a Johnny Depp fan before that, boy howdy, I would have been by the end of that viewing.  And same goes for Judi Dench.  They're both absolutely perfect in this movie -- honestly, everyone is!  

At its core, Chocolat is about finding a balance between discipline and indulgence.  If you are all discipline like the rigid Comte de Reynaud (Alfred Molina), or all indulgence like the abusive Serge Muscat (Peter Stormare), you're going to bring a lot of grief to others and yourself.  Even the heroine, Vianne (Juliette Binoche) swings from one to the other too much before finding her balance by the end.  The same goes for all the other main characters.  You have to stand on both feet to balance, knowing when to be disciplined and when to indulge in something fun or enjoyable.

I really love how Chocolate is framed as almost a sort of fairy tale.  Once upon a time, a woman named Vianne and her daughter Anouk (Victoire Thivisol) blow into a sleepy little French village on the earliest wings of springtime.  Vianne rents a vacant shop and revitalizes it with paint and love.  The locals are excited by having something new in town, even if it's just a new patisserie (aka bakery).  

But it's not a new patisserie.  It's a chocolaterie.  Opening just at the beginning of Lent, the forty days that lead up to Easter which Roman Catholics traditionally observe by "giving something up," or abstaining from some specific enjoyable thing (often meat, sometimes sweets -- it really depends on the person).  "Giving something up for Lent" is supposed to be a way to help a believer focus throughout the day on what Jesus gave up in order to win their eternal salvation from sin, death, and Hell.  But, too often, it gets turned into a pietistic outward act to make a person look good in the eyes of their friends and neighbors (or their local judgey minor aristocrat).  In this little village, everyone is expected to give up all sweets, it seems.  And yet, Vianne does a pretty good business.

This village is governed by the Comte de Reynaud, who makes it his business to know everything about everyone, or so he thinks.  He knows everything about the outward appearances of everyone's lives, anyway.  He's a one-man morality police, and even writes sermons for Pere Henri (Hugh O'Conor), the mild-mannered local priest.  

The Comte instructs Pere Henri to tell everyone in the village not to patronize Vianne's store.  Not only is she flouting convention by trying to sell delicious sweets during Lent, she has a daughter and has never been married.  She's a ruined woman who's going to ruin the whole town.  Repentance is a word the Comte likes to throw around, but he's very fuzzy on the ideas of forgiveness and living a renewed life.  

Vianne makes a few friends, like crusty old Armand (Judi Dench) and troubled Josephine Muscat (Lena Olin), as well as a sweet old widow (Leslie Caron) and her devoted would-be suitor (John Wood).  But her daughter Anouk is bullied at school and struggles to make new friends, relying on her imaginary kangaroo to keep her company.  

The last straw for the Comte comes in the form of a band of gypsies, among them a roguish musician and handyman called Roux (Johnny Depp).  Vianne befriends the gypsies.  The gypsies are even more Suspiciously Different than Vianne.  A careless comment dropped by the Comte in the hearing of a desperate and angry man leads to a dangerous and almost deadly crime, and the Comte suddenly begins to see that perhaps he's been terribly wrong about a good many things.  At the same time, Vianne realizes that her too-indulgent parenting and lifestyle comes with a potentially terrible price.

An epic (and comic) fall from grace puts the Comte back on the level with all the ordinary people of the village, particularly in his own eyes.  And Vianne has learned that indulging her whims and wishes, and relying only on herself instead of allowing others to truly befriend and help her, is also an unbalanced way to live.  

The movie closes with the whole village celebrating Easter, which is absolutely fitting in every way since Easter is the celebration of the day when Jesus rose from the dead, proving that he had balanced God's scales of justice and mercy for all time.

Is this movie family friendly?  Not exactly.  Some characters use double entendres.  We see the evidence of a man's physical abuse of his wife.  There are several suggestive moments and a fade-to-black love scene.  There's one scene of fairly intense physical violence and a scary fire.  An old woman dies, and a child finds her body.  And there are a handful of cuss words.  Not to mention a chocolate sculpture of a naked woman, although it's got a classic art sort of thing going on, it's not meant to be erotic.  I've told my teens they can watch it after they graduate from high school.

This is my contribution to the Food and Film Blogathon hosted this week by 18 Cinema Lane.  Check out Sally's blog for all the other delicious contributions.