With God on his side, he launched a war to drive the sin-inducing shop out of business.īut, in the end, even the Count fell under the spell of the chocolate. The Villain, the Comte de Reynaud, whose “fanatical” Catholic ancestors once chased the radical Huguenots from the village, remained faithful to the Church’s Lenten fast and traditions. Naturally, the success of the chocolate shop grew, along with the “conversions” worked by Vianne. A palatable, but none the less objectionable, “diversity-education” program. Vianne, the unwed pagan mother, is presented as the agent of good who chips away with her chocolate at the social prejudices that hold back the normal development of the personality. Now, in Lansquenet, she became the agent who administered the magic chocolate to liberate the repressed normality of an abused wife, draw out the young boy suffering under his rigid mother, and release amorous sentiments from the subconscious of the repressed pre-Vatican II citizenry. This is the recipe that Vianne would offer everywhere she alighted, carried by the wings of the wind. But the alluring Mayan pagan could not bear conventional life with her pharmacist husband, whom she left, following a mysterious call of the north wind to travel from town to town with her daughter (Vianne), curing neuroses and phobias with the magical chocolate formula. One night, the young man drank a mysterious chocolate beverage, which “unlocked his hidden yearnings.” It is not difficult to imagine that he met eyes with a beautiful young Mayan woman, fell in love, married her, and brought her back to France. Vianne’s father was a pharmacist who had traveled to South America to discover ancient formulas of the Mayan Indians for his remedies. Now, this chocolate was more than delicious. Little by little, armed with her goodhearted generosity and irresistible morsels, she began to break down the natural local “prejudices” against indulging in sinful pleasures in Lent. And then, a second novelty: the lovely Vianne Rocher was not Catholic and did not care about the Lenten rules of fast. They blew in like nomads, but nomads with a particular and curious concern: to open a chocolate shop in the pious village during the holy season of Lent. The wind mysteriously carried on its wings the simpatica unwed mother Vianne and her winsome daughter. Every family attended Mass, tried to be faithful to Church decrees, and followed the Sunday orientation of the young priest, who, in his turn, was directed by the stronger personality of the self-righteous Comte de Reynaud.Īnd then one day, a strong north wind began to blow. This village was very religious, very traditionalist. (Now doesn’t that sound familiar?)Īnd for anyone, like me, who delights in France, there are many scenes from a typical French village where all of life turns around the Church and the noble in his elegant manor. A good supporting cast awaiting Vianne’s “liberation chocology,” which includes an appealing timid young boy, gifted with a talent for drawing but warped by the prejudices and inhibitions of his conservative mother.The Villain, the elegant but stiff-laced traditional Count (Alfred Molina), who is the real lord of a little French village.
#MOVIE CHOCOLAT MOVIE#
First, there are tantalizing scenes of rich chocolate-in-the-making and enticing finished products, which, unfortunately, even with all the technological advances in modern movie theaters, one still cannot taste. The heroine Vianne Rocher, serves a very bitter chocolate for Catholics. Not a new technique, but always effective. And all very subtly done to make the good appear to be the evil, and the evil to be the good. And it promotes everything we’re fighting: feminism, new age magic, uncontrolled spontaneity, limitless freedom, diversity, tolerance, inclusiveness, you name it. It’s an attack on everything traditionalists stand for, she said, the Ten Commandments, Catholic traditions, hierarchy, family, conventions, you name it. The characters are amusing and engaging, the plot at times banal and boring, but, all in all, many reviews are calling it a welcome bit of good harmless fun for the family.Ī good friend asked me to go with her to see the film and then write a review.
Horvat, Ph.D.Ī new PG-13 movie with the enticing name of Chocolat is receiving good press as a “delightful fable” screened on site in France in the charming fictional French village of Lansquenet.
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