I had the great pleasure recently to watch the DVD of Lasse Hallstrom’s (2000) movie “Chocolat.” The movie stars the both pretty and beautiful Juliette Binoche as Vianne Rocher, an unmarried mother and free spirit. Vianne arrives in a small French village just as Lent is starting and opens a chocolate shop that features the most luscious looking chocolates ever to appear on a movie screen. Opposite Binoche is the Comte Paul de Reynaud the local big wheel who has an exaggerated sense of propriety and demands that all the villagers behaves as he thinks they should. Thus he has no use for Vianne and her chocolates that excite the locals to life, improve their sex lives, and threaten to make free spirits of the inhabitants of the village. . . . .
. . . “Chocolat” is a movie of the genre of “it’s better to be an individual than it is an average member of society ” type that is so popular in small art cinemas and video stores. I’ve never been that interested in being one of the average 9:00 to 5:00 types who works in one job for forty years to retire just in time for a fatal stroke. I’ll take my life in small doses daily without spending all my time preparing for tomorrow. If and when tomorrow comes, I’ll deal with it, or not.
