Chocolat is one of those movies that I forget how much I enjoy. When it crosses my path, and I sit still long enough to pay attention, it never fails to leave me smiling.There are so many elements that make it wonderful. To begin with, the cast is marvelous. Juliette Binoche is incandescent, Johnny Depp is at his charming rag-a-muffin best (perhaps the only movie I like him better in is Finding Neverland), and let us not forget the divine Leslie Caron as Madame Audel. She barely has a line, but she eats chocolate so impishly.
The costumes are lovely. Does any one look bad in a cardigan and those flared 50's skirts? And the music! To think how pale life would be, if I had not been introduced to Django Reinhardt and the intoxicating rhythm of Gypsy Jazz. I dare you not to dance.
Chocolat also reminds me why I love to cook. I'm afraid I subscribe to the Mary Poppins School of Crisis Management, which is probably why my waist band keeps expanding and all my pets are overweight. No, food can be miraculous. A dish made with loving sincerity may not fix the world's woes, but it can give a troubled soul the few moments of calm it needs to find a solution. Why I have known a homemade oatmeal cookie to calm the most stressed of law enforcement officers! Never underestimate the power of a homemade cookie.
5 comments:
I think we have ESP. I made cookies this weekend. Again. That mixer may be the death of me.
We have got to buy this movie. And learn how to sew those skirts. Flared skirts = as many cookies as I want. :)
I feel exactly the same about that movie and it was on cable this weekend..I will go buy it this week. I can even get my husband to sit through it. That dinner party scene when everyone is devouring their meal drenched in chocolate (at least that's how I remember it) is magnificent.
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I won't watch it because I first heard the story when it was 'Book of the Week' on BBC radio. It was on in the afternoons and I used to stand there ironing, enthralled! (By the story, obviously. Not the ironing)! Then I read the book and I had pictures in my head of all the characters. I was always afraid that the film wouldn't match up.
I love the film, although I have yet to read the book. I too forgot how much I enjoyed it until I spent the evening with my Mum when my Dad was in hospital, and she put that film on to help us both relax. It worked.
I love the whole feel/look of that movie.
Now I think I have to go rumage around the DVD pile and watch tis again!
Carolyn
http://willowhouse.typepad.com
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