Had the pleasure last night of whisking an older friend away from her senior residence to see CHOCOLAT at our hometown's elder community. I expected it to be an interesting experience - was not prepared for how unusual it would be.
I have been a huge fan of this film since its 2000 release. Know it backward & forward - or so I thought. Watching it last night with over a dozen elderly men & women, all raised in our upright (some would say uptight) church-based community, gave my experience an unexpected depth, a rich new dimension.
The major question on my mind as we settled down to watch was whether my friends would experience it as Roger Ebert described, "a film that pits the forces of paganism against Christianity." It so, I expected an exodus, beginning with the revelation the heroine has a daughter, but never married.
Only one friend left, and she often leaves before a film is over. The rest stayed.
When the credits rolled & Martha turned the room lights back up, I waited with bated breath to hear the comments. In place of the icy silence I half expected, there was a warm response. Everyone seemed relaxed, like they'd enjoyed the flick. There were numerous comments along the lines of, "That was an interesting, different story." And quite a few confided, "I'd REALLY like some chocolate!"
The film is set in 1959, in a small French town. Village life centers around the Catholic church, in turn dominated by the local Count. He is rigid in his faith, taking perverse delight in self-denial, committed to maintaining appearances at any cost.
The Count is horrified when, just as Lent begins, the sly north wind blows a woman - an inspired chocolatier - into town. Her chocolates & easy friendship opens the villagers' senses, emotions & ultimately their eyes.
From the moment he sees her, the Count knows Vianne spells trouble. Once he realizes that his town is being released from its ancient strict moorings, he sets out to rid the village of the threat. Noting that an ancestor drove the radical Hugenots out, he believes he can do nothing less than expel Vianne from Lansquenet-sous-Tannes.
The film swiftly becomes - or so it seems - about a holy crusade against the threat of chocolate shells & cups of hot chocolate with a hint of chili.
The film is about transformation. By the end of the film, only one character is the same as in the beginning, and he is the one expelled from the village, told by no less than the Count to never return.
Everyone else is far different.
Vianne, the chocolatier, is released from the needing to move on;
her daughter, Anouk, no longer needs Pantoufle, her imaginary kangaroo;
Josephine has the village's support in becoming her own woman;
Roux gives up his "river rat" ways;
Armande finds new zest in life, a new relationship with her grandson, without completely losing her trademark grumpiness; her grandson is unfettered from his over protective mother, who learns to let go of fear & embrace life;
the elderly Guillame is freed to realize his feelings for the Widow Audel, who finally moves past mourning a husband "lost in the war" (WWI!);
and the Count is "strangely released," losing his rigidity, gaining the courage to things be as they are rather than as he thinks they should appear,
even letting down his defenses to open his heart.
Watching last night, it was clear to me - perhaps to my friends as
well - that the true heart of the film is the transformation of Pere Henri,
the very
young, Elvis-loving priest, who has, as Lent arrives, been in the
parish five months, compared to his predecessor's five decades. At the beginning, he's totally under the Count's thumb, accepting suggestions on his
sermons & even delivering the Count's words - about the evils of
chocolate - verbatim
from the pulpit. By the end, he tells his "benefactor" that they have gone over the sermon enough & takes it back.
And what an Easter homily it was, one used even today in churches around the world. It captures the true message of the movie, which isn't paganism v. Catholicism, but something far more, something that engaged my dear friends last night:
I
want to talk about Christ's humanity,
I mean how he lived his life
on earth:
his kindness, his tolerance.
We must measure our goodness,
not by what we don't do,
what we deny ourselves,
what we resist,
or who we exclude.
Instead, we should measure ourselves
by what we
embrace,
what we create,
and who we include.
If only more of my younger friends could have been there last night, experiencing parents, aunts & uncles, grandparents experiencing the film. Maybe my older friends responded as it felt they did due to a deep longing for a life where grandmothers & grandsons reconnect, long-time marrieds share fresh passion, old people open to love, crazies are understood, the arrogant are humbled & the oppressed liberated, where love is acknowledged as what matters most.
By the end of CHOCOLAT, I had not only a different sense of the movie, but a richer appreciation of my older friends as well, a strong sense of their kinship with Mom, firm in what she believed but opened, eager to connect with interesting, different stories. An unexpected blessing!
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