Chocolat

This is a terrific film, with superb performances and direction, based upon the amazing but tragic true life story of Rafael Padilla, known as 'Chocolat', a black colonial slave who escaped to France as a child and became famous there as a circus clown. The director is Roschdy Zem, a well known actor in France who has only directed four films. He directs this film with such thorough professionalism that one could readily believe that he had really directed forty rather than four. The two lead actors are Omar Sy (that being a Senegalese surname, but he was born in France), who plays Chocolat, and James Thiérrée, who plays the older clown who discovers him, trains him, and becomes his partner, known as Footit. I must point out immediately that this is the same James Thiérrée who is such a genius stage performer, who tours the world with astounding surrealistic circus acts, and is perhaps the most highly regarded person of his kind in the world. He is the grandson of Charlie Chaplin and looks exactly like him (I mean Chaplin in real life, not 'the Little Tramp'). I first saw James and his sister Aurélie (another well known solo performer now) perform onstage when they were tiny children, appearing with their parents, Victoria Chaplin and Jean-Baptiste Thiérrée. Of all the Chaplin children, Victoria is the one who carried on the pure Chaplin talents for mime and acrobatics with the utmost genius, and her son has even surpassed her. Victoria's most astonishing feat in her own touring circus act was to fold herself up so that she could be shut into a moderately-sized suitcase! They really are an amazing family (and in Victoria's case, easy perhaps to take on holiday in the baggage rack). But Victoria and her husband are very, very private. They do not mix in the Paris world of celebs at all, and when I first had to contact her about something, two Paris celebs who 'knew everybody' and I thought could help me find her told me 'No one knows them.' James however seems to have an infinite number of friends who cluster around him enthusiastically, smothering him with admiration and bonhomie. He shows no signs of being surly or grumpy in his person, so it is all the more remarkable how wholly convincing he is in this film as Footit, a man who was always depressing and surly. In other words, James is a superb actor as well as everything else that he is. Omar Sy is magnificent as Chocolat, as he effortlessly glides between pathos and wild slapstick comedy. He too is a leading talent in France. So the film works, and comes together extremely well. Because James and Omar Sy are naturally practised and skilled at what they are doing, their circus acts are incredible. James not only plays someone who is, but himself is, a thorough circus pro who can do anything and everything, and has done so in public since at least the age of five or six. He can do clowning, acrobatics, high wire, trapeeze, mime, you name it. And he writes and plans and directs all his own shows with his small troupe. He is what is called THE REAL THING, and so is this film.

I watch this movie in the last week in a cinema festival in my city called "Festival of Cinema Francês Varilux". The reasons who motivated me to see this movie was the circus theme, which pleases quite my particular taste, and I not regretted it one bit having assisted. The story based on real events was very well represented by their respective actors, and shows a clear way the difficulties and prejudices suffering black people in society in general during the nineteenth century. It's exciting and makes us us to reflect about the life of the clown Chocolat. I really enjoyed, is engaging and exciting. Script, scenery and costumes simply perfect. You feel in time the film is over, the places makes you travel centuries in the past. It seems that every detail has been thought out thoroughly, just impeccable.

The story about an early black clown makes for an interesting tale; the circus setting is always a welcome deviation from our rational world, and there's even some nice acting and good sets here. Somehow it still doesn't add up to an A movie for me, although I'll recommend it at least for a single viewing.

The producers and director showed some balls in keeping this from being either a feelgood movie or a politically correct pamphlet; instead they go for a rather realistic and character-driven angle. The downside to this bold decision is that the movie is not very captivating, simply because the main character is - like most men - a mixed bag at best and a cautionary example of what money can do to people. In fact, this cautionary tale of a man whose very financial success leads to his moral decline is much more in the center of the movie than the racial themes which are dealt with mainly in a five minute detour.

Certain things may seem ... strange to say the least. Like how people of color were treated. Not just in America mind you. And this movie showcases just that. Omar Sy is very well known for another comedy, but as with that other movie, there are underlying social and ethical questions here.

I personally never was too much of a fan of laughing at other peoples pain. That is if we are talking about real pain. Or dignity - if someone trips it is embarassing, because most will laugh as a first reaction instead of worry if something happened or what made the person trip. In comedy that is used to their advantage - as is the case here, where we laugh with the silliness but also the "pain" of the characters displayed.

But what we see on the surface is just that: it is on the surface! Because there is a lot more to be seen here. As a character piece this is quite incredible and really well thought of and played. It is not just fun and games though as you can imagine ... and all that in the face of that or similar things actually being true (as in they happened) ...

Monsieur Chocolat takes you on a black man and his clown mentor's journey at the turn of the 20th Century.

Visually sumptuous, the film invites you to suspend your 21st-century habits and venture back into a time when everything was slower. Everything was tougher too though, depending on the cards you had been dealt in life.

If you allow yourself to enter this sometimes magical and sometimes scary world, you will be seduced by the rhythm and pace of the story as it unfolds and moved by the resilience of the human spirit.

The hard and soft edges of humanity stay with you long after you leave the cinema.