Chocolat

1988
PG-13
1h 45m

IMDb RATING

7.3/10

4.7K

YOUR RATING

A French woman returns to her childhood home in Cameroon - formerly a colonial outpost - where she's flooded by memories, particularly of Protée, her servant.

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A French woman returns to her childhood home in Cameroon - formerly a colonial outpost - where she's flooded by memories, particularly of Protée, her servant.A French woman returns to her childhood home in Cameroon - formerly a colonial outpost - where she's flooded by memories, particularly of Protée, her servant.A French woman returns to her childhood home in Cameroon - formerly a colonial outpost - where she's flooded by memories, particularly of Protée, her servant.

Director
- Claire Denis
Writers
- Claire Denis
- Jean-Pol Fargeau
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.3/10

4.7K

YOUR RATING

Director
- Claire Denis
Writers
- Claire Denis
- Jean-Pol Fargeau
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 1 win & 3 nominations total

Videos1

Trailer 2:05

Trailer

Photos99

+ 92

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Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
In a 1989 interview with Judy Stone, Claire Denis explained that the title, comes from the 1950s slang meaning "to be had, to be cheated", and thus refers to the status in French Cameroon of being black and being cheated; it is also an allusion to Protée's dark-brown skin and the racial fetishism of Africans by Europeans.

Quotes
Marc Dalens: When you look at the hills, beyond the houses and beyond the trees, where the earth touches the sky, that's the horizon. Tomorrow, in the daytime, I'll show you something. The closer you get to that line, the farther it moves. If you walk towards it, it moves away. It flees from you. I must also explain this to you. You see the line. You see it, but it doesn't exist.

Connections
Featured in Siskel & Ebert: Jacknife/The Adventures of Baron Munchausen/Skin Deep/Chocolat (1989)

User reviews29

Review

Featured review

meditative and insightful

Despite needing something more for me in its wrap-up, Claire Denis' Chocolat is in all ways a really good look into Cameroon and France's colonial history. Unlike the case of some films made in the US, it doesn't hammer the audience with a message about white people's ugliness, instead it just carefully shows them, and sort of leaves the audience the responsibility to observe and be horrified. It's amazing how a narrative like this with a white lead is so carefully handled that it doesn't make excuses for that privilege, and doesn't paint her as an exception or, a favorite Hollywood trope, the white savior. Isaach De Bankolé is also key here. When his character cracks it's not obvious why he does, but it's in the little expressions and reactions to the things he hears and witnesses that should explain it.