France, an aptly named young girl, lives an idyllic life in northern Cameroon with her parents and black servants in her perfect sheltered life in a racist country. Everything gets shaken up when Luc, a former missionary turned laborer gets brought in along with the local black workers. France's parents, Aimée and Marc can't get a handle on enigmatic Luc. He is kind of an instigator using his white man gone native shtick against clueless whites and obedient blacks alike. Tension rises and the forbidden passion surfaces when a good servant Protée gets pushed by Luc's antics. Chocolat is a very subtle predecessor to Denis's White Material last year. You can see her progression as a filmmaker in those twenty years- loose structure, striking cinematography & visual poetry. What's not changed is her ability to capture those brilliant moments of alienation/contrasts, sexual tension and lurking-right-underneath-the-surface violence like no other. #clairedenis #IsaachDeBankolé #colonialism