Chocolat features a young, independent mother, Vianne, who enters a small, conservative, and religious French town with her daughter, and she opens a chocolate store during Lent. The town mayor, Comte de Reynaud, is enraged by her actions and even fears her influence, because Vianne threatens to break his traditions. He is a strict man and wishes to rule the town with an iron fist. He has been successful until the presence of Vianne and her chocolate.
Vianne is a foreigner. She travels in a bright red cape in which her daughter also has. She follows to North Wind, and allows it to take her wherever it calls her to. She is not religious, because she does not believe in such restrictive rules. She is not married, and she has a daughter. Vianne stands for everything that the town is not.
This story reminds me of another tale - "The Women Men Don’t See” by Alice B. Sheldon (actual story provided.) Sheldon depicts a woman, Ruth Parson, who is traveling alone with her daughter, and the story tells that they have already been to a couple of places. Parson’s family does not involve men. Ruth’s mother raised her alone, and Ruth raised her daughter alone. Furthermore, Ruth and her daughter leave Earth together; if her daughter is with child, then her daughter will also raise that child alone.
For some unknown reason, all the women in the Parson family remain single, and the men’s only role is to provide the seed for the next generation. It is as if independence runs through the women’s veins. It is in their blood. Vianne comes from a similar culture where the women roam free to travel, to explore, to help, and to fight. Men are not involved. They follow the call of the North Wind.
Another interesting similarity is the influence of “Maya” culture. Ruth and her daughter traveled to many Maya sites and were supposed to be going to another, and her daughter is later involved briefly with the Mayan pilot. If you notice Vianne’s sign, it says “Chocolaterie Maya.” Her chocolates are based on the Mayan recipe.
However, unlike Ruth, Vianne is definitely “memorable.” The sidestories involve how Vianne helps different villagers. Most of them star a female character, rather than male character - an eldery woman with an equally strong spirit, a wife with an unpassionate spouse, a woman trapped with an abusive husband, and more.
Vianne and her chocolates are exotic with the power to "awaken the passion," and that is exactly why she is not to be accepted. The town’s people call her “some kind of a radical.” A child calls her “an atheist.” Although he does not know what that word means, the way he says it implies a strong, negative connotation as if Vianne is associated with the devil.
Needless to say, Vianne infuriates Comte de Reynaud. He calls her a “brazen” woman and fakes sympathy for her “illegitimate child.” He is threatened by her, because she “laughs” at the town’s, namely his, traditions. She wears vivid colors and has a signature red cape while the main colors of the town are grey, black, and white. Chocolate is sensual; not only that, Vianne’s chocolates are exotic. She is the embodiment of life and its sins.
This single woman represents a foreign power that this one man is afraid of. His world is changed, and not in the way that he wants. She is independent and will bow down to no man. He is terrified of her potential, yet he can do nothing to suppress her. He then tries to prevent the town’s people from further succumbing to her influence by calling her “satanic.” She is also immoral, for she associates herself with the gypsies who are boycotted for immorality. She is a black-hole to his universe.
Chocolat is a story of a woman’s mission to bring joy to a village that has long forgotten the meaning of happiness and the true meaning of life. Life is not all about strictly following rules and traditions. Life does not mean for one to be serious and solemn all the time. Life is about letting oneself go and remembering what little things make the heart beat and make the heart melt. Life is knowing how to give and accept kindness and care. Life is about the unrestrained expression of love.
Life is living with passion.
