Chocolat Analysis

Claire Denis’ Chocolat in juxtaposition to Frantz Fanon’s concept of colonial violence.

1. Introduction
Analyses of the film ‘Chocolat’ by Claire Denis in contrast to Frantz Fanon’s writing ‘The Fact of Blackness.’ The title of the movie Chocolat was derived from a colloquial speech meaning ‘to be had, to be cheated,’ in connotation with ‘to be black and to be cheated’ (cited in Sandars 2001). Chocolat is a movie of endless delicacies, it is about the boundaries set by the racist society. In the film two adults (Aimee and Protee) are mutually attracted to each other but can’t be together because of their skin colour differences (Ebert). Chocolat relays heavily on visuals to emphasise the conflict between France’s family and the servants.

Who was seen as part of the family but treated as a subject. Chocolat is a film directed by Claire Denis in 1988 about a French family that lived in colonial era in Cameroon. In the fifth chapter of his book Fanon wrote an essay entitled “The Fact of Blackness” which was in a form of a cry of a black man. The writing was released at a time when decolonisation and self-determination were intensifying and taking the centre stage. Macey (2000). The colonial violence in Fanon’s book and the scenes in chocolat are comparable. Figure 1 Protee in the outdoor shower. Claire Denis (film director and writer), chocolat, 1988 (screen shot by Gift) (Denis 1988).

2.

What is depicted in the picture is the outside extreme of the colonial violence which is far less compared to the internal damage instigated by the colonial other. Morgan agrees that the colour line separating colonizer and colonized is internal, “exists within each of these two cultural positions as well as between them,” that “the psycho-social relationship between colonizer and colonized is . . . complex and multi-layered . . .” (cited in Morgan 145-146).

The colonisers spent years creating bleach chemicals for “denegrification” so that they can save a black man from the curse of being black as the black skin is unclean. Fanon finds himself suffering from schizophrenia and many disorders as a result of the white man’s harsh treatment. When all he wanted was to be himself. To a white man from France, Fanon was a “Martinican, a native of “our” old colonies” (Fanon, 1986, p.113), which was a perception which deprived the black man of self-pride or confidence in himself.

Figure 3Protee helps Aimee fasten her revealing evening gown. Claire Denis (film director and writer), Chocolat, 1988 (screen shot by Gift) (Denis