The review:
Lourdes, Marc. "Film Feast." New Strait Times. 1 Dec. 2007: pg 02. Proquest Newspapers. Proquest. Western Libraries, Bellingham. 22 May 2008 .
Monday, May 26, 2008
Chocolat
Oh my goodness...I like chocolate, but not THAT much chocolate. I read a review written by Marc Lourdes from the New Straits Times, December 1, 2007, titled Film Feast. I do agree with him when he makes the statement that this movie is purely eye candy. The film was definitely "pleasing to the eye," but in my opinion, a little too much pleasing to the eye and there was nothing else to it. There was just too much chocolate and though it was nice to look at, I got sick of it after awhile. I thought the plot of the movie was a really odd...to have a movie centered completely around chocolate. I would argue the person who created the idea of this film was a pure chocoholic. I find it strange that the little chocolate shop Vianne creates stirs up so much controversy in the little town. It seems very unrealistic. My mom mentioned to me that she saw this movie on a plane while on a trip to New York and she thought it was stupid, so I never bothered to watch it (since most of the other people I know that had seen it said roughly the same thing). Now I know why. It was just ridiculous, that chocolate was such a big deal in this village. The chocolate shop attracts a ton of attention, loathing feelings and suspicion, while at the same time arouses emotion and passion. I could see why the little Catholic town was so sheltered and pure, but it just seemed strange that chocolate would be the sin that begins to tear the town apart. It's just candy for crying out loud. The casting in this movie was weird too. Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche were kind of a strange pair. The fact that these too actors are very successful, didn't make the movie any better. I'm not really sure why this movie won several Academy Awards, but it definitely is a sappy, romantic movie that I would only watch with a bunch of girl friends. I doubt I could get my boyfriend to sit down to this whole movie and not be miserable. I do really like chocolate, but to watch an entire movie centered around it that really has no plot and strange combinations of actors, I doubt if I would watch it again by choice.
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3 comments:
I read the same review that you did by Marc Lourdes. I thought about his claim a lot that this film is only pleasing to the eye. The first time that I watched the film I may have agreed although I now do not agree. The film was very pleasing to the eye although I think the theme had much more significance to it than it was given credit. There was a lot of chocolate in the movie and it could seem a bit much at times but I picked up on many over arching themes that dove deeper than what initially met the eye.
Yea I definitely thought at times that this movie was too unrealistic I mean the whole Mayan back story was pretty fer fetched but that made me enjoy it a lot more I think. Yea there was a lot of choclate but that's what'd we'd expect from a movie called Chocolat but I think it was more about the power of chocolate than the look of it. I thought it was pretty ridiculous but all in all I don't think it could have pulled of being any more realistic.
I think that if a shop moved into a very religious town and began to entice the residents to give up on lent, you would see a similar commotion. I feel that in real life it would take more than a chocolate shop, but the general idea is plausible. You see these kinds of controversies raised when any morally flexible business (casino, strip club....) moves into a small town.
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