Before anyone starts slinging the “R” word around, this is not about that. So get your pointed little cursor off of the Hide Button and have a read.
The film Chocolat begins in a church…
Opening lines from the film “Chocolat”
Once upon a time, there was a quiet little village in the French countryside, whose people believed in Tranquilité – Tranquility. If you lived in this village, you understood what was expected of you. You knew your place in the scheme of things. And if you happened to forget, someone would help remind you. In this village, if you saw something you weren’t supposed to see, you learned to look the other way. If perchance your hopes had been disappointed, you learned never to ask for more. So through good times and bad, famine and feast, the villagers held fast to their traditions. Until, one winter day, a sly wind blew in from the North…
I’m not going to spoil it in case you haven’t had the pleasure, but I will include some of the themes of this fine piece of film making directed by Lasse Hallström and written by Joanne Harris (novel) and Robert Nelson Jacobs (screenplay).
Chocolat is a not “just” the simple story of a mysterious woman and her daughter that appear in a small French village in 1959.
Chocolat begins with the arrival in a tiny French village of Vianne Rocher (Juliette Binoche), a single mother with a young daughter, on Shrove Tuesday just before Lent. Vianne moves with her daughter into a disused bakery to open a chocolate shoppe
Later we learn that Vianne’s Grandfather, a young pharmacist, had traveled to Central America to study the medicinal properties of certain natural compounds. (Hence, the healing and soothing effects of the wares in the Maya Chocolat Shooppe)
His adventure took a turn he did not expect. One night, he was invited to drink unrefined cacao with a pinch of chilli. The very same drink the ancient Maya used in their sacred ceremonies.
The Maya believed cacao held the power to unlock hidden yearnings and reveal destinies. Against all advice, he married her. The tribal elders tried to warn George about her.
She was one of the wanderers.
Her people moved with the North Wind…
from village to village…
dispensing ancient remedies…
never settling down.
When he realizes that Vianne intends to open a chocolate shop in place of the old bakery, thereby tempting the churchgoers to over-indulgence, Reynaud’s disapproval increases. As it becomes clear that the villagers of Lansquenet are falling under the spell of Vianne’s easy ways and unorthodox opinions, to the detriment of his own authority, he is quick to see her as a danger.
Yep, trouble right here in River City. Chocolate, more tempting than pool by far. Slowly a few folks try her Cocoa concoctions, angering the Mayor who re-writes the village priest’s sermons to demonize her.
I’ll stop here other than to say Johnny Depp, the leader of a pack of River Rats, shows up and the Mayor doesn’t like him either.
I will tell you that it is chock full o’ metaphors. Separation of Church and State, Authoritarianism, The Schism between Science and Religion, and a host of other dichotomies that when seen through the right kind of eyes will remind you of the current mess we are in.
The film ends as it begins, in the village church..
The young priest speaks on his own for the first time without the editing of the Mayor. He ad libs…
I’m not sure what the theme of my homily today ought to be.
Do I want to speak of the miracle…
of our Lord’s divine transformation?
Not really, no.
I don’t want to talk about His divinity.
I’d rather talk about His humanity.
I mean, you know, how he lived his life here on Earth.
His kindness.
His tolerance.
Listen, here’s what I think.
I think we can’t go around…
measuring our goodness by what we don’t do.
By what we deny ourselves…
what we resist and who we exclude.
I think we’ve got to measure goodness…
by what we embrace…
what we create…
and who we include.
This to me exemplifies the Obama Movement we are now witnessing.
Inclusion
not Black V. White
Young v. Old
Man v. Woman
Straight v. Gay
Include everyone (well, not everyone, BushCheneyCorp and their enablers should be excluded, shunned and kicked out of the village.)
Now I will tell you the ending of Chocolat….everyone is happy.
The End
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this was supposed to go in recent diaries not FP.
Sorry ’bout dat.
if we need to throw gays under the bus to win south carolina evangelical votes.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes…
I had those lines from the movie
above my desk for awhile after I saw the movie. But they had faded from memory. What an important message for all of us to unite around!!
impurities, the Obama candidacy is indeed like the film chocolat.
America is in love with a movie.
The reality is really going to bite.
…and smile right in your face.”
Jimi Hendrix, singing of being “in utero,” looking thru his momma’s “Belly Button Window,” and looking forward to being nursed by her.
So, if BHO is like chocolat, what is HRC like?
Yesterday’s stale Sweet Tarts?
And what of McCain? A co-worker suggested yesterday that McCain could be our real “Manchurian Candidate.” He wasn’t disrespecting the pain and torture McCain suffered during his six years in the “Hanoi Hilton.” He just wondered what else might have happened to McCain’s mind back then.
Food for thought? Not chocolat, certainly.
Maybe ExLax.
I have it a DVD. As far as Obama vs Clinton goes, I voted in the primary, it is now out of my hands. Which ever ones wins the Democratic nomination, I will vote for her/him. My philosophy a this point is that either one of them is better than a Republican with anger management issues that may also have signs of early dementia who will be manipulated by his “handlers”.