Chocolat (1988)
There's a moment in Chocolat where you sense Claire Denis is doing something genuinely special, something quiet and loaded and precise. And then the film just... continues being quiet. And loaded. And precise. For another hour or so. I'd heard a lot about this one, and I went in expecting to be pulled in by it. That pull never quite came.
To be fair to Denis, this is clearly a film made with enormous care and confidence. Shot with a painter's eye for the heat and dust and light of colonial Cameroon, it has a visual language all its own. The atmosphere is thick, and you feel the weight of the setting pressing down on every scene. This is not a lazy film. It's not an unintelligent one either. And yet, for long stretches, I found myself waiting for it to properly ignite.
The pacing is the central problem. I know slow cinema can be revelatory, and I've got time for it when it earns the patience it demands. But Chocolat sometimes feels less like deliberate restraint and more like a film that's misplaced its momentum. It drifts, and not always in a way that feels purposeful. The colonial dynamics are the film's most legible concern, and Denis puts those front and centre without ever letting you forget the grotesque power structures at play. That much lands clearly. But the religious and superstitious undercurrents that the critical conversation often dwells on? They're so lightly sketched that I'd have missed them entirely if I hadn't been looking. I found myself wishing those threads had been pulled a little harder.
Where the film genuinely earns its reputation is in the performances, and fair play to Denis for getting such grounded, restrained work out of her cast. Isaac de Bankolé is absolutely brilliant as Protee. He barely speaks, but he doesn't need to. There's a whole interior world communicating itself through his eyes and his stillness, and it's remarkable to watch. Giulia Boschi is equally strong opposite him, conveying restraint and quiet hunger and guilt in equal measure without ever tipping into melodrama. The tension between their two characters, unspoken and unresolved, is the film's true subject, and when the camera is fixed on them together, Chocolat becomes something genuinely affecting. Those scenes are the highlight of the picture, no question.
But even performances that strong can't entirely compensate for a film that feels like it's missing a few vital components. The soundtrack is one of them. There's no real musical presence to speak of, nothing to tie the emotional moments together or give the story the occasional lift it desperately needs. When you're working with material this deliberately spare in terms of plot, the score has to do some heavy lifting, and here it's largely absent. The result is that the whole thing floats by in a kind of pleasant, respectable haze.
It reminded me a bit of my experience with Pacifiction (2022), another film rooted in colonial unease with a deliberately slow-burn approach. That one I found I could sink into more readily, but I understand why some viewers bounce off both. If you want something in a similar vein that carries a bit more propulsive emotional force, I'd point you toward Sugar Cane Alley (1983), which deals with related themes of race and colonial legacy in the French Caribbean and, for me, grips a lot harder.
Look, Chocolat is not a bad film. It's a respectable, handsomely made piece of work from a director who clearly had a precise vision and the skill to realise it. I can see exactly why it's regarded as an important debut. But important and gripping are different things, and this one sits more comfortably in the former camp than the latter. Three stars feels about right. Admired more than loved, respected more than felt.
Rating: ★★★ | Year: 1988 | Watched: 2026-06-09
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
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