Chocolat

Rating:
Summary: Chocolat
Review: I didn't get all the hype around Chocolat that everyone made it seem.The acting and dialogue aren't the problem.The film is just extremely strange which made me kind of like it, but it was to odd and boring at times.It tells a sweet tale and ends well but I just didn't get into it.Binoche does a great job along with much of the cast.The characters are loved and you hurt when they are hurt but it doesn't pay back for the dullness.I just can't sit two hours through a film like that.I get bored and start to doze off especially later at night.Don't get me wrong it has a sort of heart warming tale and great looking chocolate but that doesn't help a movie get a good rating.Johnny Depp and Judi Dench especially do a fabulous job and Dench really was in my opinion a stronger and more believable character.Another thing that is interesting about the film is the setting and it's moral.I didn't like the cloudly dark feeling around the film either.The overall major problems though are the dullness and unusual plot; also it is a bit predictable.I really only reccomend this one if you are very easily impressed by all movies or you may want to check it out if your bored.

It is the late 1950s, but it might as well be the late 1850s in a small French town where everyone behaves as they should (supposedly), and attends church regularly. When a strong North wind blows through town, it brings the vivacious and mysterious Vianne (Juliette Binoche) and her young daughter Anouk (Victoire Thivisol). Vianne is soon the talk of the town: an unwed mother who declines to go to church and opens up a chocolate shop in the midst of Lent. Her good-natured, honorable personality and psychic ability (she can predict what kind of sweets best suit each person, and magically cures each of them of their particular maladies) make her as irresistible as her delectable treats. However, Vianne and her daughter are resented by the conservative mayor, the Comte de Reynaud (Alfred Molina), and by the pious Caroline (Carrie-Anne Moss), who has disowned her own spirited mother (Judi Dench, who plays Vianne's landlady), refusing the elderly woman access to her beloved grandson.This touching fairy tale, based on the novel by Joanne Harris, was filmed on location in rural France. An intelligent, exquisitely filmed fable that deals with the idea of 20th Century paganism rising up against a closed-minded church and a persevering aristocracy, CHOCOLAT is enjoyable, romantic, and entertaining, with affecting performances by both its stars and its supporting actors (Lena Olin and Johnny Depp.)

Rating:
Summary: Predictable and trite, but with a good heart and style
Review: Ho hum, yet another film about how the stuffy among us need to loosen up a bit. In this case the setting is a small French town with a prudish mayor (a real live Count, no less) whose grip on his people is slowly pried away by the arrival of a mysterious lady in red (one of many, many cliches employed here) who makes chocolate with a little something extra that frees its imbibers from their inhibitions.

Although the filmmakers are sure to show that no one goes too far into sin for any reasonable person, this is apparently not the case for the prideful and repressed mayor, his puppet of a young priest, and their parishioners, but by film's end even the mayor is partaking of her confections and providing a noticeable presence at an apparently pagan ceremony held next door to the church.

It could only be more trite if they'd sing "Koom-By-Yah." Fortunately the film is very pretty to look at and there are a few moments with some dramatic tension, notably involving a big dumb lug who beats his wife and her escape from his clutches but, even in moments when a character (usually the mayor) has a momentous decision to make, the character almost always goes exactly the direction we would expect.

Such a shame. I absolutely love chocolate, but this drek almost gives it a bad name.

Rating:
Summary: A movie worth watching!
Review: Definitely a wonderful movie, Chocolat, brings to the screen the story of a wandering mother and daughter as they settle in a small rural post-war French village, open up a chocolaterie and begin affecting the small community/society in a most profound way.
As the movie implies there is chocolate and lots of it...
The setting is 1959 France, and it is a film about human relations, hope and second chances, but most importantly about how trust, love, and inner strength, can lead out of situations, which might seem bleak or desperate at first glance.
On the negative side, the only setback is the cliché clash between "conservatism" and "progressivism" and how Vianne falls for the wandering gypsy.
Needless to say, Juliette Binoche, Johnny Depp and the rest of the cast have truly outdone themselves with their performances, which are outstanding to say the least, especially Alfred Molina's character who as the town's mayor, steals the show!


Rating:
Summary: A Feel Good Movie!
Review: I love this movie. It has it all... plus Johnny Depp! But even without him, I love the story, and the fabulous actors in this wonderful tale of romance, heartbreak,and quiet heroism. (And I'm a sucker for a happy ending!).
Cuddle up with a mug of hot chocolate (and a few truffles wouldn't hurt). Enjoy. Alone, or with someone, it's great. And the soundtrack will put you in another world.

Gift idea: Make it a theme.Buy the DVD, add some truffles, a canister of imported hot cocoa,and maybe a chocolate scented candle, or whatever else you may think of. WOW!!!

Rating:
Summary: A Gentle Tale of Lent and Chocolate
Review: This adaptation of Joanne Harris's novel lacks the seductive charm and magic of the original, but it succeeds on its own as a quiet film about a French village rife with personal crises. When the mysterious Vianne (Juliette Binoche) and her daughter Anouk (Victoire Thivisol), dressed in red capes, arrive in town on a day the wind from the North gusts open the church doors, interrupting the sermon on the first day of Lent, something begins to stir. The pious mayor (Alfred Molina) knows it better than anyone. Vianne opens a chocolaterie, serving up exotic confections designed to bring out the best in people, and relationships in the grim town shift. Vianne seems immune to her own magic - until a band of gypsies and their leader Roux (Johnny Depp) set up camp on the edge of town.

Director Lasse Hallstrom excels in his evocation of a small French village in 1959 and the people inhabiting it. Despite its Swedish director, British author, and international cast, this film feels authentically French. Its rhythms are mostly gentle, and its focus is on character rather than an intricate plot. Juliette Binoche turns in a fine performance, even though her smile at times seems too vapid and easy for such a complicated character. Judi Dench makes a memorable appearance as Vianne's landlady, a crotchety but spirited old woman who is estranged from her uptight daughter (Carrie-Anne Moss) and her grandson. John Wood and Lena Olin also turn in strong supporting roles.

Art house film addicts will want to see this, but more mainstream viewers may be bored. Recommended for viewers who enjoy the leisurely unfolding of a quiet drama.

Rating:
Summary: Chocolate reforms the church!
Review: This is an American movie directed by Swedish born director Lasse Hallstrom (The Cider House Rules, 1999; Something to Talk About, 1995), set in France with a distinct French flavor. The cast, headed by the very talented Juliette Binoche as Vianne Rocher, a wandering proprietress of chocolate, is highly accomplished and very much worth watching. Judi Dench has a substantial role as the cranky Armande, and Johnny Depp makes a belated appearance as Binoche's love interest, Roux, the River Rat. Alfred Molina plays the small town's semi-fascist Catholic mayor, Comte Paul de Reynaud. With his slicked-back, straight black hair and the precise black mustache and his imposing countenance, one is somehow reminded of Count Dracula. Leslie Caron (An American in Paris, 1951; The L-Shaped Room, 1963), now in her seventies, has a small part as the widow Madame Audel. Carrie Anne-Moss of Matrix fame (but I recall her most memorably in Memento, 2000) plays Armande's strait-laced and estranged daughter. Noteworthy is the captivating Victoire Thivisol as Anouk Rocher, Vianne's nine-year-old daughter. Thivisol won the best actress award at the Venice Film Festival in 1996 for her work as a four-year-old (!) in Ponette (1996). She is surely the youngest actor ever to win such an award.

Chocolat is also a kind of modern Dionysian morality tale in reverse with the Catholic church and small town narrow-mindedness as the bad guys. It gets more than a bit sappy at times, and the unrelenting celebration of outsiders and non-conformists is wearisome and sorely tried my patience throughout. However, just as is the case with chocolate with its uplifting qualities amidst the lure to overindulgence, the good surely outweighs the bad. Hallstrom is an ambitious director who is comfortable playing to an adult feminist audience. He attempts the complex and the unlikely. Here, there is more than the usual Hollywood seduction of the intended audience. There is underneath the surface a strong symbolic presence, giving the story a kind of resonating, fairy tale existence.

Chocolate of course serves as the Dionysian wine, but it is also a semi-addictive substance from a tropical American plant, the cacao, rich in sumptuous oils and theobromine, a heart and general nervous system stimulant similar to caffeine. Cocoa was the first stimulant drink to break the unrelenting hold of beer and wine on the European palate. It was quickly followed by coffee and tea. Prior to the rise of these cerebral drinks, it was commonplace for Europeans to drink beer for breakfast, and indeed to drink beer and wine throughout the day. Many believe that caffeine was a handmaiden of the Renaissance, which of course led to the eventual weakening of the hold of the Roman Catholic church. Vianne, who is the daughter of a central American mother and a European father, represents the shamanism of the New World, leading the populace away from the narrow confines of the medieval mentality with her irresistible confections made with the seed of Theoboma cacao.

The problem with the movie, and the reason it did not achieve a more wide-spread acclaim, lay not only with its cloyingly unbalanced feminist viewpoint and its anti-Catholicism, but with the difficulty Binoche (and Hallstrom) had with her complex role. Her character is a woman who wants desperately to find a place in society and to be accepted by the petite bourgeoisie while maintaining her personal sense of value (and her red shoes!). She is, in a sense, a gypsy fortune teller (recall the spinning plates) who longs to be a pillar of the community. She is worldly wise, kind and forgiving, but partly a shopkeeper with a shopkeeper's need to set down roots. She is also a Mayan princess born to wander with the sly wind that ushers her about. So, underneath all else, this is a story about finding a home. Because Vianne is frequently attacked for her lifestyle while being the sort of person who does not return insult with insult, Binoche is reduced in many scenes to a kind of tolerant, slightly superior, patient smile that becomes wearying. It is only when Johnny Depp appears that we see the real Juliette Binoche and a true indication of her ability. Incidentally Depp is excellent as a gypsy musician who understands himself and his place as a counter balance to a conservative society. He is an inspiration to Vianne because he alone is not transparent to her; she only discovers his "favorite" chocolate by happenstance after two wrong guesses. Depp also serves to save this film from the near monotony of inadequate males and dissatisfied females. When he appears I can almost hear the audience sigh.

Incidentally, you might want to compare this to Babette's Feast (1987) in which the narrow-minded and in need of liberation are northern Protestants, while the woman with the tempting goodies is an exiled Catholic chef from France. If Hallstrom had taken a clue from Gabriel Axel, who directed Babette's Feast, and followed a more objective and balanced treatment, Chocolat might have been a great movie. As it is, it is a very interesting one, and one you're not likely to forget or to feel neutral about.

Rating:
Summary: Passion for Life and Chocolate
Review: I first saw this movie about three years ago with my two best friends, it captured everything we wanted to see. I think that even though the story is simple, it is made into a movie very thoughtfully. When I watched it again I noticed small details that were overlooked the first time, details that brought life to the movie. I love how the passionate woman brings life to this little french town, it grows from a deeply religious and traditional gray town to one that is bright and alive but does not compromise its previous beliefs. This movie also awakened a great passion for real European hot chocolate, not the mix stuff! Oh, and for me, anything French is great, I love the language and the culture (although the people are not always nice).

Rating:
Summary: What can be called a great movie
Review: Along with the winter wind came a mysterious foreigner and her six-year-old daughter. This is the start of our wonderful story with the arrival of Vianne (Juliette Binoche), Luc (Aurelien Parent Koenig) and Pantouffe - her the imaginary kangaroo - on a small community full of exaggerations traditions and laws. Shortly after arriving she opens a chocolate-shop full of temptations for the villagers, who unfortunately were fulfilling their Easter promises. However, they will not easily surrender to her kindness, not even to her amazing gift of guessing which are her client's most secret wishes. She bravely faces all the problems that surround her, and wins the respect of, one by one, each people form the village. But some are harder than others, and she will have a very had time with Reynaud, the prefect in charge of the small village, who does anything he can to make her go away and even forbids everybody to go to her store! A conflict will then appear between the ones who want to keep their old traditions and respect the village's laws, and the ones who have just found a new pleasure in life. With the arrival of another stranger, Roux, and attracting and seducing gypsy, Vianne will also learn a about her own desires and know the meaning of the word love.
A funny, romantic and dramatic movie, directed by Lasse Hallstrom ,with the amazing performance of Julliet Binoche, Johnny Depp and Alfred Molina. Nominated for 5 Academy Awards (Including Best Movie and Best Actress). Everything you might wish for a good session is on this all time movie.




Rating:
Summary: A bittersweet tale
Review: Bittersweet like chocolate. Get it? You do? Want to be my friend? No, not really? OK. Well, I hope you enjoyed the pun.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful
Review: This is a beautiful fable with beautiful performances carefully nuanced to strike just the right tone for high farce. And no, my friend, the title is not "spelled wrong" or misspelled as some might say, it is French.