Chocolat

Claire Denis’ first feature is an intensely moving and understated work with a powerful autobiographical bent.
A young woman named France (Mireille Perrier) returns to Cameroon and retraces her childhood growing up there. Her father (François Cluzet) was the administrator of a small province in the north of the country, often called away on work, leaving France (Cécile Ducasse) alone with her mother Aimée (Giulia Boschi). Their sole contact is with their servant Protée (Isaac de Bankolé), a handsome young local, who inadvertently occupies a fatherly role for France and a source of desire for Aimée. The daily routine of the three however, is soon disturbed by the arrival of a group whose plane is damaged and Luc, a lapsed priest intent on breaking the colonial conventions.

Denis’ debut is a labour of love, which sensitively evokes the memories of its protagonist’s childhood while branching out onto external issues of colonialism and racism. Thus while not overtly so, the film raises numerous political and social paradoxes in a society based on domination and segregation.

The film accords us three viewpoints: that of the young girl France, the black African servant Protée and the French mother Aimée. Consequently Denis’ film explores perspectives seldom given credence in mainstream cinema and is most striking in its recognition of the taboo desire harboured by Aimée (as well as Protée) which crosses colonial and racial lines.

Denis avoids the facile route of sensationalism through a measured approach to her filmmaking. Agnés Godard’s luscious photography hovers across the West African landscape, as Denis takes her time to draw out a profound portrait of the harsh environment and the select band of characters who find themselves within it. The influence of Wim Wenders and Jim Jarmusch, for whom Denis worked as an assistant director prior to launching into her directorial career, is most apparent here. Now Denis takes us on her own enchanting trip down memory lane, through an engrossing style of filmmaking which would come to define her work (Beau travail, 35 Shots of Rhum) and establish her as one of the greatest auteurs working today.