Chocolate (Chocolat)

Claire Denis

France 1988 | 105 min | 35 mm | colour | 1:1,66 |
French and English version, Czech subtitles

Director's partly autobiographical début from the French colonial era – under the surface of an elegant movie there is a throbing longing for social and sexual satisfaction.

The director Claire Denis debuted with partly autobiographical film Chocolate, in which she returns back to her solitary childhood in the era of fading French colonialism at the end of the fifties. The story is opening with the return of grown up France to Cameroon where she was born. Even though the landscape welcomes her as its own, the white French woman is a mere foreigner to others. Young black father and his son who she meets at the beach revive the memories of servant Protee who used to keep company to her and her mother in big white house for most of the time. Claire Denis takes up the viewpoint of a young girl and without judging or criticizing anyone reveals the conservatism of that society. The longing for social and sexual satisfaction is beating under the surface of an elegant film.