CHOCOLAT

Claire Denis and her films, Cameroon and French colonialism, Discussion
of the film Chocolat
CHOCOLAT
Claire Denis (1946-)
 Born in Paris
 1946-1962 Lived in several African countries
 Father a colonial administrator
 Graduate of IDHEC
 Assistant to Jacques Rivette
 Professor of Film Studies
Claire Denis’ films
 Documentaries
 Man No Run 1989
 Jacques Rivette, le veilleur 1990
 Vers Mathilde/ Towards Mathilde 2005
 Dramas
 Chocolat 1988
Dramas
S’en fout la mort/No Fear, no Die 1990
J’ai pas sommeil/I can’t sleep 1994
Nénette et Boni 1996
Beau travail/ Good work 2000
Trouble every day 2001
L’intrus/The Intruder 2004
35 rhums/ 35 Shots of Rum 2008
Matériel blanc/White material 2009
“Tales of foreigness”
 Feeling of exile in contemporary
consciousness
 Malaise of the post-colonial world
 Internalisation of process of inferiority affecting
those who lived in the former colonies
 Associated with
 Postmodernism
 “New French Extremity”
Postmodernism
 Questions
 “Grand narratives”
 Basis of colonization
 Progress of humankind
 Western culture: a model
 Binary opposition
 Other: “what we are not”
 White/black, male/female, rich/poor
Chocolat
 Remarkable first feature
 Filmed on location in Cameroon
 Capital: Yaoundé
 Colonial house built in North Cameroon
 Near Mindif
 Peak: “La dent de Mindif”
The French in Africa
 French Mission to civilize
 1895 Afrique Occidentale Française
 1910 Afrique Équatoriale Française
 1946 African colonies become Overseas
Territories part of Union Française
 Cameroon Comissariat de la République
autonome
 1960 Independence
Cameroon
 1880 British and German trading posts
 1888 Became German colony
 1916 Taken over by Allied Forces
 1922 Divided between the British and the
French
 1960 Independence
 French and English official languages
Chocolat
 Not autobiographical
 Mythical names
 France
 Protée: a Greek god
 Long flashback
 Framed by two sequences in the present time
Title Chocolat
 Reminiscent of former colonies
 Coffee, bananas, chocolate
 Racism
 “Y’a bon Banania”
 Childhood nostalgia
 Disappointment, failure
 “être chocolat”
Nostalgia for colonial era
 Recreation of a European lifestyle
 Food
 Schooling
 Qualified
 Framed in the present
Authenticity
 Reconstruction of mid-fifties settlement
 House based on memories of inhabitants
 Props, costumes
 Former German settlement
 “The last house in the world”
 Depiction of harsh reality
 Dangers
 Hyena
 Malaria
The end of an era
 Colonial splendor already vanishing
 Evening with Jonathan Boothsby
 Depravity appears pathetic
 Jonathan Boothby
 Aimée is rejected by Protée
 Latent rebellion
 Murders mentioned
 German settler
 Family of French settlers
End of colonial period
 Efforts of the Europeans are doomed
 German cemetery reclaimed by wilderness
 Aimée’s vegetable garden is destroyed
 Damaged plane cannot take off for weeks
 Images of decay and dead animals
Realities of colonialism
Boredom
Heavy drinking
 Promiscuity
 Luc Segalen and Monique
 Nostalgia for France
 Old traditional French songs
 Marc Dalen, Joseph Delpich
 Exploitation and racism
A XVIth century folk song
“Si le roi m’avait donné
Paris sa grand ville
Et qu’il m’eût fallu quitter
L’amour de ma mie
J’aurais dit au roi Henri
Reprenez votre Paris
J’aime mieux m’amie, o gué..”
A XIXth century song
“Je sais une église au fond d’un hameau
Dont le fin clocher se mire dans l’eau
Dans l’eau pure d’une rivière
Et souvent lassé, quand tombe la nuit
J’y viens { pas lents bien loin de tous bruits
Faire une prière..”
Colonial arrogance
 Marc Dalens
 “Next year I will make the road wider”
 Joseph Delpich
 “So now these people make decisions here..”
 The Machinards’ rejection of treatment by
black doctor
Colonial exploitation
 Isolation and poverty of the natives
 Sexual exploitation
 Machinard and his black mistress
 Introduces her as “Ma ménagère”
 “Voici ton picotin, ma cocotte”
 Monique’s objectification of Protée
 “Il est beau, ton boy”
Chocolat
a transgressive film
 Shows the “feminine side” of colonization
 Some characters are transgressors of the
French colonial order
 Three encounters reveal unpleasant truths
about colonialism
“Le Féminin colonial”
 Termed coined by Frédéric Strauss
 Works of women directors
 Not story of a white hero such as
 Alain Corneau’s Fort Saganne 1983
 No t a spectacular reconstruction such as
 Régis Wargnier ‘s Indochine 1991
Feminine point of view
in Chocolat
 Daily realities of life on a settlement
 Heat, inertia, boredom
 Practical aspects
 Cooking, gardening
 No justification
 No voiceover
 Implicit and implied prevail
 Feelings and intuition prevail
Transgressors of colonial
order
 France
 Eats ants, feels close to the Africans
 Aimée
 Slight Italian accent
 Friendly with locals
 Luc Segalen
 Wants to “go native”
Three Encounters
 Jonathan Boothsby
 Reveals decadence of the colonial order
 French colonialists
 Joseph Delpich, the Machinards
 Uncovers racism and arrogance
 Luc Segalen
 Troublemaker
 Uncovers hidden feelings in colonizers and
colonized
Luc Segalen
 A user, un “pique-assiette”
 An opportunist
 Leaves Monique and moves on
 Highly intelligent
 Educated
 A former seminarian
 A taboo breaker
 Cruel and perverse
Segalen’s transgressions
 Does not respect division of space
 Sleeps outside
 Goes into the servant’s quarters
 Eats with them
 Taunts both sides
 Uncovers the unsaid
 Racism and sexual attraction
Segalen and Prosper
 Equates him with a Pigalle character
 Maurice Chevalier’s song:
 “Prosper, c’est le roi du macadam”
 Blames him for being subservient to the
Europeans
Segalen and the Dalens
 Exposes himself to Aimée
 No respect for her
 Suggests that she is attracted to Protée
 Leaves without saying good-bye to Marc
Segalen and Protée
 Blames him for being subservient
 Senses his anger and frustration
 Uncovers attraction between Aimée and
Protée
 Provokes him
 Physical fight
 Protée is stronger
Protée’s role
 Isaach de Bankolé
 Known for performance as fast-spoken black man,
here largely silent
 Difficulty to find an actor
 Role thought of as degrading
 Une vie de boy Ferdinand Oyono 1956
 Written from the point of view of the boy
The story of a “boy”
 Une vie de boy
 Stereotypes of anti-colonialism
 Nymphomania of white woman
 Naïveté and sexualisation of young black man
 Chocolat
 Protée’s story told from a distance
 Clichés played out, questioned and debunked
Protée
 Uneducated
 Cannot read or write
 Yet a skilled worker, speaks English and
French
 A good respectful son
 Sends money to his family
 A frustrated man
Humiliations
 Asked to do “women’s tasks”
 Cooks, looks after France
 Helps Aimée dress
 Treated as a non-person
 Aimée wants him to stay in her bedroom when Marc
is away
 In his presence
 Aimée and Marc kiss
 Guests have racist conversation
Abuse
 A man put at the level of a child
 Spoon-feeding
 Obeys a child
 Lack of private life
 Asked to shower just before guests’ arrival
 Forced to shower outside
 Demoted from skilled to manual work
Protée’s ambiguous position
 Complicity and affection with France
 Games
 Riddles, live ants sandwich, hunt
 Attraction to Aimée
 Tidies her clothes
 She forbids him to do it
 Frustration
Protée and Aimée
 Unspoken attraction
 Exchange of looks in the mirror
 Aimée’s advances
 Break a powerful taboo
 Protée’s rejection of Aimée
 Raises her back on her feet
Protée’s ambiguous position
 Protective of the European world
 Follows the rules
 Has compromised his Africanness
 Taunted by village children
 Aloof from other African servants
 In the end chooses Africanness
 Rejects roles of lover and surrogate father in the
colonial order
Protée’s anger
 Breaks down twice
 Shower scenes
 Fight with Luc
 Confrontation
 Burn
 Revenge or complicity?
 A symbol of the end of colonialism
 Pain
 Pride
The burned hand
 In contrast with hand of young boy at
beginning of film
 Full of sand
 Sawa’s mother native of Cameroon
 Mungo people also a local ethnic group
 Colonial past has been erased
 There is no future for France in Africa
The dividing line
 Invisible line between races
 Equated with horizon line
 “there and not there”
 Referred to immediately after Protée’s
rejection of Aimée
 A questioning of the old order
 France feels African
 Mungo Park is black but does not belong in Africa
Debunking of colonial and
anti-colonial myths
 No one is innocent
 Real attraction between Aimée and Protée
 Marc does not question Aimée’s demand
 Aimée’s conclusion
 Marc has been naïve
 Black pride
 Protée’s a nd Mungo’s rejection of white women
Post-colonialism
 Physical evidence
 Church, Texaco station
 Continuing exploitation
 African artefacts loaded unto the plane
 Transformation of art into industry
 Les Statues meurent aussi 1961
Chris Marker, Alain Resnais
Exile and alienation
 Caused by colonisation and slavery
 Extreme case: Black Americans
 Mungo Park has nowhere to go
 Mungo advises France to leave
 “Va-t’en, petit, avant qu’on te mange
 “Leave, little one, before they eat you”
Conclusion
 No place for France in Cameroon
 Workmen represent real Africa
 Reclaim their country
 Fusion possible only if white and western
elements are transformed
 Fusion in music