Bill Kinney
ENG 458, Agatucci
26 April 2002

Chocolat Summary

Overview:  Chocolat opens with the visually visceral scene of a boy and his father lazing in the water on a lush beach in Cameroon.  They’re lying in the water with the waves gently washing up against them.  The boy grabs a handful of chocolate covered sand and the water gently moves the grains with an errant force that suggests the unfathomable power of the tide.  This scene sets the stage for the telling of a moral story that must be told.  Human nature is the main focus here and morally; human nature is depicted as a tide of movement that can only be stopped with the possibility of great harm to humanity.  The story is of a girls (France) childhood in Cameroon.  The French colonized Cameroon and France is the Daughter of Governor who is actually gentle to the natives and his family.  His travels leave his wife and daughter home alone with the native help.  Protee’ is the servant and the Governor’s wife develops an unspoken longing for this gentle man.

Human:  During the course of this movie I came to the realization that humans, no matter what culture they’re from, act, feel, and think similarly to each other.  Sure, Language helps create our reality but welling below the surface of every one is a biological drive striving to help replicate the species.  Some have the moral reprehensibility of letting this need dictate their actions (Gov’s wife).  While others, like Protee’, aren’t in a position where interracial or adulterous relationships are accepted.  Protee’ knows the limits of this society but only hints at the depth of emotion that he’s feeling in the gazes that he shares with the Governors wife.  These looks convey possibilities of what could be, but never will.  

There is another scene where she asks Protee’ to run her a shower.  He obliges and dumps the water into the barrel.  Immediately, the camera focuses on the soapy water running out on the ground.  The correlation between white, clean Europeans trying to wash a country and the soapy water trying to wash the ground was very real.  It happens but what comes of it?  The next scene shows a graveyard.  I guess that answers it succinctly.

© Bill Kinney, 2002

“Afrique, Je Te Plumerai”
(Africe, I Will Fleece You)
 This is a film documentary directed by Jean-Marie Teno.  His object was
to “peel away the past” and he does this in a sardonic cryptic manner.
Through out the film we hear the underlying song “Africa, I Will Fleece
You” which we subliminaly absorb as Teno tells his story.  He wants to
educate his people and us to the true history of Cameroon.  He
accomplishes this by combining factual newsreels and imaginary scenes.
These scenes depict the influence and destruction of Cameroon culture by
European Colonizers.   That of the Europeans replaced the native
language, history, and education.  The distortion of history portrays
the natives as willing soldier’s of France; willing slave laborers, and
ignorant of their own culture.  Teno then balances these scenes with the
truth from the native point of view:  the people were not willing to
slave labor for the French or fight their wars.  And the denial of
native artistic and cultural history produced a cultural genocide.
I believe the visual statement of this film was Teno’s wake-up call to
the Cameroon native people.  He wants to educate them and put the past
events of Colonialism in its true perspective.  He cries out to them to
have pride in who they are.  That becoming an evole whose goal is
imitation of the white in language, dress, and culture is demeaning.
Once again I had my eyes opened to truth.  I found the newsreels most
revealing of the attitude of the colonizers.  The tone, words, and
content depict the truth of the Colonizers’ motives.  He is there to
steal the resources, enslave the people, declare his superiority, and
deny the humanity of the natives.

“CHOCOLAT”
CHOCOLAT is a movie directed by a white woman, Claire Denis.  The fact
that she is white and is able to portray the dignity of a black man is
relevant to the theme of the movie.  She explores relationships that
begin in the subconscious: sexual attraction, friendship, need, and
power.  The story is built on the struggle of a white woman and a black
man to keep their place in a racial society.  There is a great interplay
between the powerful and the powerless; the moral and the unmoral.  The
scenes are quiet silent thoughts.  We watch the woman fight her
attraction for the black man and then submit to her feelings.  This man
who shares her feelings rejects her.  He holds the power with the
knowledge of his dignity and worth.  The white female child and the
black man have a relationship built on pure love.  You see it in their
looks and actions.  There is no racial barrier to come between them.
Prote’s stands alone in the center of the drama.  He is stoic, calm,
dignified, and discerning.  The child reflects these same
characteristics.  She is there, present, calm, quiet and instinctively
drawn to this man of character.  Emotion is not relayed by words in this
movie; it is related by the innuendos, the side-looks and the body
language.  We are left to fill in the answers to the questions of love
between races, whether between a man and woman, or between a child and
her servant.  Why do we love?  Who are we attracted to?  Is it the
unattainable?  The unknown?  The mystery we seek to solve?
I found this to be a deep complex story.  It brings all the questions to
mind that we do not choose to answer.  How prejudiced are we against the
black race?  Can we see their beauty?  Are our lives so narrow that we
are in our white box?  How much can love overcome?