Chocolat

There is a lent course called ‘Christ and the Chocolaterie’, having not looked at it I cannot tell if what I thought while watching the film has been said before or not…

But anyway, here goes.

Chocolat – a beautifully acted and scripted romantic film – but also so overtly religious, how could anything useful come of it!

Ignore the Catholic rhetoric, the pompous, yet frightened town Mayor controlling both priest and people and focus rather on the tempestuous chocolaterie opened just in time for lent.

The devil has come to town.

The words almost cry off the screen. Yet, not the devil, but Christ in the strangers guise. It is she who gives and old woman life in her last days. She to whom the landlords wife turns when all is falling around her feet. She who re-ignites passion in a dull marriage. She who invites outsiders when no-one from the village will entertain them. She to whom all turn in their darkest moments and are transformed, (all be it with chocolate!) into lightness and life. What else was the mission of Jesus.