Chocolat
Claire Denis’s debut feature, based on her childhood memories in 1950s Cameroon, elliptically recounts the story of an illicit love affair between a civil servant’s wife and their African houseboy as seen through the perspective of a child.
The great Claire Denis made her debut with this semiautobiographical feature, based on her childhood in colonial French Africa as the daughter of a civil servant. France (Mireille Perrier) reminisces about her childhood in Cameroon as her father (François Cluzet) comes and goes on call, which leads to the strengthening of her friendship with their devoted house servant, Protée (Isaach de Bankolé), and to the escalating sexual tension between him and her mother, Aimée (Giulia Boschi). As Protée increasingly becomes an object of desire and of scorn, France’s memories become increasingly ambivalent. Prefiguring the concerns of later films (Beau Travail, White Material) and establishing the tactile sensuality and elliptical style for which she is known, Chocolat today stands as a modern classic. A Film Desk release.
I think it is some kind of miniature classic.
—Vincent Canby, The New York Times
A film of infinite delicacy.
—Roger Ebert
You feel as if your senses have been quickened, reawakened. The movie is like sex for the eyes
—Hal Hinson, The Washington Post
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