Roar Post#5 [Reaction to a review of film]

James Kendrick from Film Desk Reviews seems to have given the movie Chocolat a bad review. Although I do not agree with his rating of 2 stars, after reading his review, I do understand why he gave the movie the rating that he did. According to Kendrick he says,“ Everything is spelled out to the letter. Every character represents this or that, thus they never register as humans, despite the admittedly great cast. The characters are nothing more than stand-ins for various life philosophies, and the film stacks the deck awkwardly in favor of those it wants us to side with”. I did not think of this before, but now that I read it, I do agree with it. As I’ve said in my previous Roar posts, the structure of Joanne Harris’s book is very nice. It is very nice in the fact that it switches perspectives from protagonist to antagonist, something that I don’t encounter that often. Given the chance to peer into Reynaud’s thoughts, you start to feel sympathy for him, and sometimes you feel as though he is the good guy. In the case of the movie, it is very classic in the sense that it is all about Vianne and her battles against Reynaud and the church. One can instantaneously begin to vilify Reynaud after a couple of minutes of watching scenes of Reynaud staring menacingly at Vianne. The reason is because the movie shows only one side of the story, which is the point that Kendrick tries to make. This is probably the only point that I agree with Kendrick though.

In his review, he also states that, “For all its anti-religious and anti-establishment posturing, Chocolat is terribly conventional”. I did not find this movie to be terribly conventional, but rather relievingly conventional. It is probably due to my weakness for happy endings, but I never get bored of them. In the book, the ending had a major plot twist for me involving Pere Reynaud’s downfall. Therefore, as I watched the movie and began seeing plot changes, I began to hope that the producer changed the ending as well. It seems as though I got my wish in the end, which is why I say the movie, to me, is relievingly conventional.

Another point that I will have to disagree with is when Kendrick states that,

“And, just in case the theme of tolerance, inclusion, and the rejection of traditional religious moral imperative didn't stand out enough during the first hour and 45 minutes, the film delivers nothing short of a sermon--not a speech, but a sermon--to sum everything up in a nice, pithy three minutes”. Kendrick’s message is that the movie offers an overkill of morals and lessons. But I think that Pere Henri’s sermon at the end was the cherry on top that was seriously needed to wrap everything together. During this scene it also showed mayor Reynaud nodding in approval to the words of the priest. This time, it was the priest’s own words, and to see Reynaud agreeing with them shows that he has finally changed in the best of ways. That’s what I like in a movie.

Kendrick, James. “Chocolat”. QNetwork Entertainment Portal. 1998-2011. 28, February, 2011. < http://www.qnetwork.com/index.php?page=review&id=168>.

Chocolat- Roar Post #4 [ Movie Comparison to Book]

To start off, I guess I could talk about the plot points, and how the movie’s plot differed from the book’s. First of all, the main antagonist of the book is the priest Francis Reynaud. In the movie however, although he is still Reynaud, he is now a mayor. The role of priest has been given to a new character known as Pere Henri. Reynaud still shows religious influence over the townspeople by bossing the priest around ( in the movie, the priest is very good natured and nice, which I liked). A few insignificant changes that I noticed was that Josephine’s husband’s name was changed from Paul to Serge. I am not sure why the producer changed this, as it does not help advance the story in any way, but alas, he did it. In addition to that, in the movie, Serge/Paul tries to win Josephine back by transforming into a gentleman. But when she still rejects him, he goes back to his drunken state and then proceeds to burning Roux’s ship. In the book, Paul never undergoes any change. Adding on to that, in the movie, it was Paul’s burning of the ships that caused him to be kicked out of town by Reynaud. In the book though, Paul fled the town due to the embarrassment of losing his wife. On another note, we see that Caroline helps Vianne in her chocolate shop towards the end of the movie. Finally, one other thing that immediately comes into mind is that Armande dies in the company of her grandson Luc. In the book, it is much more clever. First, Armande suffers a near death experience, but Roux manages to get help from Vianne, who ends up saving her life. In the book, Armande dies very expectedly and ideally, after her 81^st birthday party. This way of dying I prefer rather than the abrupt death as shown in the movie.

Actually, there was one difference that I really enjoyed and welcomed wholeheartedly. It is in the ending, and I prefer the movie ending a bit more. In the book, like I’ve mentioned in Roar post # 3, I did not really like the book ending to Chocolat. The reason was because it seems as though Reynaud suffered a very dishonorable downfall, and I usually like my antagonists to have a good ending as well ( well, most antagonists ). In the movie, it was a more cliché ending but I liked it more. Mayor Reynaud apologized to Vianne, Vianne forgave him, and the chocolate festival was a huge success. There are many more minute differences, but I shouldn’t go into too much detail. These are the ones that stuck out to me.

Now lets talk about the camera work. Something really cool that I saw was that Pere Henri, the priest always stood on a high balcony when speaking to the townspeople at mass. This reminds me of one of the film terms that we went over in class, the low angle shot. This type of shot makes sense being directed toward the priest, because it makes him seem very big and powerful. Fortunately, his demeanor serves to present him as nice and approachable as well. I don’t know if this next observation is a coincidence or not, but it seems pretty plausible. In the movie, during a long shot where Roux and Vianne are alone and talking, I noticed flame in the foreground. I immediately took this to be some sort of foreshadowing for imminent danger. I already know the imminent danger to be Roux’s boat catching no fire since I read the book, but I was still apprehensive to see what would happen next to break the peace. My prediction about the foreshadowing turned out to be right, because a few minutes later the scene erupts in flames. In terms of the mod of the movie, I saw an obvious choice in color. When it is wintertime, the entire town is very gray, but when spring arrives, everything is vivid with bright colors.

Finally, I want to note that the movie executed the fall of mayor Reynaud quite nicely. When he is finally seduced by the chocolate and begins eating the stuff like crazy, the movie showed it high angle shots to make Reynaud seem weak and vulnerable. The next day, almost as an additional insult, the movie shows Reynaud asleep, covered in chocolate, and displayed publicly to the townspeople (as he fell asleep in front of the display).

All in all, the movie was not quite how I imagined it, but I enjoyed it all the same.

Chocolat- Roar Post #3 [Pages 202-306]

SUMMARY

Following the funeral of a distant relative of Narcisse, at around noontime Roux came rushing into the chocolate shop with grave news. He says that he thinks that he killed Armande Voizin. The story was that Roux came to visit Armande after feeling bad for yelling at her the a few days before. But he found Armande half-conscious and asked Roux to go to the fridge to fetch some medicine, and so Roux fetched her some brandy because he thought that was what she meant. Fortunately, when Roux and Vianne arrived at the scene, Vianne managed to save Armande’s life through her quick work and skill with insulin needles. After she recovered, many of the townspeople came rushing to the scene, thinking that she was already dead. But alas, she was not, and she dismissed all of them except for Vianne, Roux, and a doctor that Narcise called in.

            After talking to Reynaud one day, Vianne had uncovered a terrible secret that Armande had been hiding all this time. She has been diagnosed with a disease called Diabetic retinopathy that gradually makes her blind. But despite this gloomy discovery, Armande still wants to celebrate her 81^st birthday in style, with Vianne doing the chocolate catering. She wants to have all her friends around her and have a feast for the last time in her life.

            On a Wednesday morning, Caroline Clairmont and Joline Drou came into the La Praline Chocolate shop. Joline Drou, Anouk’s teacher at the school wanted to talk to Vianne about her daughter’s weird behavior in the school. Apparently, when Reynaud came into the classroom to talk about the meaning of Easter, Anouk began asking various questions concerning non pagan traditions. This confused all of her Christian classmates and disrupted the whole classroom environment. But Vianne dismissed this as being trivial, because she believed that Anouk was just participating in the class. With that being said, Caroline and Joline left the shop in a fit. The next day, the two women began hanging flyers around the town telling people to boycott Vianne’s chocolate festival.

Although this did not faze Vianne, Josephine was very afraid, and when Vianne held her hands to calm her down, she saw that Josephine was thinking about smoke, smoke from the day that Roux’s boat was lit on fire. She tried to get Josephine to tell Roux that it was indeed Paul who started the fire. After a while she managed to convince Josephine to do so, and when she told Roux, their relationship was no longer hostile and fearful. After telling Roux the truth, Josephine became so happy and confident in herself that she actually decided to walk down to the Café de la Republique by herself to collect her belongings. She decided to go on Sunday, when Paul was not at home and at church, but unfortunately, Paul did not go to church on that particular day. Therefore, when Josephine came into the café, she was caught off guard and faced an angry and heart broken ex-husband. Luckily Armande, Guillaume, and Reynaud managed to come to Josephine’s rescue in the nick of time and save her from being seriously harmed by Paul. The Residential Committee that was responsible for boycotting the chocolate festival lost all of its credibility after that event since Paul was part of the committee.

            Paul Muscat has fled from the town, leaving the café to the ownership of Josephine Bonnet. She now changes the café’s name from Café de la Republique to the

Café des Marauds, and is fixing it up quite nicely with the help of Narcisse and Roux.

Meanwhile, Reynaud has not given up completely in his plan to get rid of Vianne. He plans to destroy all of the chocolate she has made so that the chocolate festival will not be a success.

            Good Friday was the day of the celebration of Armande’s 81^st birthday. The guests were Vianne and Anouk Rocher, Caroline, Georges, and Luc Clairmont, Guillaume Duplessis, Josephine Bonnet, Julien Narcisse, Michel Roux, Blanche Dumand, and Certisette Plancon (two gypsies). Everything went according to plan, and even the worrisome Caroline managed to loosen up a little. The feast was lavish, unhealthy, and delicious at the same time. In the end though, when the time was approaching 1 o’clock, Armande began getting sleepy. When Vianne settled Armande in her bed, it is evident that she has finally passed away. But she passed away happily, and in the way that she wanted to as well. After that, Roux and Vianne abruptly kiss, and it would be the last time they would do so.

            At 4:00 A.M on the morning of Easter Sunday, Reynaud put on his balalclava mask and put his devious plan into action. However, as he entered the store, he was seduced by the wonderful chocolate that lay before him. Today was the day that his fast could finally be broken, and break it he did. He began eating bits and pieces of every type of the chocolate in the shop. He wasted so much time that eventually at 6:00 A.M, the bells started ringing to signify that Jesus had risen. To his demise, he saw Vianne and others staring at him on the ground, lying there smeared in chocolate and disgrace. From there, Reynaud ran off into Les Marauds, never to be seen again.

            And from there, things started taking a turn for the better. Vianne was able to tidy up the shop fairly quickly and begin the chocolate festival. In short, it was a great success. At 4:15 in the afternoon, Vianne was able to deliver all of her orders and sold the last of her gift boxes. Late in the evening, Guillaume came in with a letter from Armande. In the letter, Armande tells Vianne to not come to her funeral but instead, to invite all of her friends around La Praline and have a pot of chocolate.

            In the end, Anouk has forgotten her imaginary friend Pantoufle and has replaced him with real friends. Guillaume has found happiness in a new dog, Roux and Josephine are together happily in their new home at the Café des Marauds. Also, the little town of Lansquenet is no longer an invisible town, as the chocolate festival attracted many foreigners from far and wide. All in all, the town is happy and satisfied, and does not need Vianne anymore. Although she feels the need to leave sooner of later, she does not feel rushed. She does not feel the need to run away from anyone anymore.

QUOTE

“ Why should she struggle to preserve for any longer a condition doomed to this inevitability? ” (Harris 270).

REACTION

I would have never expected the story to end in the way that it did. What I expected was that Reynau’s plan would kind of work, but in the end, he would come to his sense and accept Vianne into the town. However, Joanne Harris ended it by having Reynaud being disgraced and run out of the town while Vianne has a happy chocolate festival. I definitely am glad that the protagonist has a good ending, but I feel much remorse for Reynaud. I wished that he would be one of those antagonists that turned a new leaf in the end and go down honorably. There were so many events in the story that hinted towards that particular ending. For example, after Paul Muscat’s attack on Josephine was made public and everyone no longer listened to the Residential Committee, Reynaud himself said that Vianne had won and only a miracle could save them now. I took this to be an honorable acceptance of defeat, but I guess I was wrong. Also when Reynaud finally succumbed to the deliciousness of the chocolate on the morning of Easter Sunday, I could have sworn that he was going to turn into such a happy man. However, Joanne Harris introduced a major plot twist that caught be completely off guard. For that, I applaud her writing style.

I almost forgot that this book utilized magic realism. Magic realism is the reason why Vianne is able to know most of the townspeople’s feelings and know their favorite type of chocolate. I was reminded of this aspect of the book when Vianne touched Josephine’s hands and suddenly deduced that it was Paul Muscat who burned Roux’s boat at Les Marauds.

The quote that I chose for this section actually was something that Vianne said in relation to Armande’s disease. She said that she finally understood Armande’s thinking. Her thinking that sometimes, some things are just inevitable that you just have to let it happen. I found that this quote could actually be applied to the entire section. It could mean that the townspeople of Lansquenet were inevitably going to change anyways, with Vianne’s help, so why should Reynaud try to stop the inevitable? I mean this in a good way, as in Reynaud should have allowed for some good changes to occur in his town.

Chocolat- Roar Post #2 [Pages 101-198]

SUMMARY

Upon telling some of Anouk’s friends about the origin of chocolates on Easter, Vianne had managed to catch their attention. In particular, a boy named Jeannot Drou had a magnificent idea that Vianne should organize a chocolate festival on Easter day.

After a day’s hard work of preparing sugary and chocolaty confections to decorate her shop for the chocolate festival, Vianne decides to take a break. Armande Voizin comes in to have a cup of chocolate, as she usually does. She is skeptical that her grandson Luc will come (they haven’t seen eye to eye in a very long time, and recently, Vianne invited him to come into this shop). Armande is astonished when Luc does come, and they share a couple of hours of priceless conversation. When Luc leaves, Armande thanks Vianne.

Later on, Roux comes to the chocolaterie as he had promised earlier. Through their conversation, Vianne had found out that Roux had been a builder once, but problems arisen that forced him to live a nomadic life with the gypsies.

Now the story transitions once again to Reynaud’s point of view and he expresses his contempt towards Vianne. After looking at the poster outside the shop, he accuses Vianne of purposely planning the chocolate festival the most holy of the church’s ceremonies, Easter Sunday. He comes into the shop to scold Vianne for this unacceptable date. However, Vianne does not find this to be a problem and says, “ I’m sure there’s room here for both of us”. With that, Reynaud leaves, defeated. There is no police department in a small town such as Lansquenet, but Reynaud says that he actually wants some violence to occur because it might give him an excuse to call the police from Agen.

Now as Viannne had promised, she and Anouk came at Saturday night to Les Marauds to Roux’s temporary home. A small celebration of sorts was happening, and Vianne and Anouk and Pantoufle (Anouk’s imaginary rabbit friend) joined in on the festivities.

The month of March had come, a month for change, according to Vianne. It was getting closer to Easter, which means that Reynaud is trying harder at Sunday service to preach about the evils of Vianne and her chocolate shop. Even Josephine Muscat, who previously had become much more confident in herself, had shrunk back to her old state of fear. However, Armande was never fazed. She knows that Reynaud can’t do anything to her because she knows some secrets of Reynaud from back in the day. Reynaud was actually a local, but he left Lansquenet when he was a boy. Apparently, he was involved in a really big scandal, and now he is back in the town. Guillaume had to finally put his dog Charly to sleep, because the dog was suffering too much.

Moving on to other events, because of a disastrous fire that occurred in Les Marauds, the gypsies were finally forced to leave the area, much to the happiness of Reynaud. Roux knows that the fire was not an accident, but he has no proof to back his case. Nevertheless, he is determined to finish his job repairing Armande’s house, so he is currently living at an abandoned house down the road.

Now to more happy events, Josephine arrived in the afternoon and said that she finally left her husband Paul. She was planning to use some of her housekeeping money

To run away, but Vianne convinced her otherwise. Instead, she offered her own home to Josephine. But later on, a drunken Paul Muscat came to demand his wife back. Luckily, there was a safety chain on the door so he couldn’t just barge right in. Paul begins yelling at Vianne for influencing his wife this way. This is when Josephine again musters up more courage and stands up to her husband face to face. From there, it was done, and although Paul was still shouting outside the shop, there was no going back.

            The next day, Guillaume came into the shop very cheerful. He brought a stray dog that Roux found by Les Marauds. Although he says that he does not plan on keeping the dog, it seems that he already has won the affection of the dog. After that, people just began pouring into the shop, not for chocolate, but to see if the rumors about Josephine leaving her husband were true. Things were still cheerful until Reynaud came into the shop. He began trying to convince Josephine to return to her husband but thanks to the support of Vianne and Armande, Josephine was able to resist Reyanud’s influence.

            This section ends on a bad note as we see Paul Muscat conversing with Reynaud. He asks Reynaud if he was able to convince Josephine, but Reyanud says no. Although Reynaud wants to save the marriage, he does not want to do it just so that Paul can go back to being lazy and beating his wife everyday. Nevertheless, when Paul comes up with a plan involving a fire that will get rid of Vianne, Reynaud is all ears.

QUOTE 

 “ All of us changing. Speeding up. Like an old clock being wound up after years of telling the same time.”( Harris 113).

 

REACTION

The reason why I picked this quote was because it is true. Everyone is beginning to change in this section, with Armande being the exception of course. Josephine is standing up to her abusive husband and Reynaud while Guillaume has learned to cope with the death of his dog Charly.

The character of Reynaud is a very interesting character in this book. He seems to be a hypocritical man who is trying his best to get rid of Vianne Rocher while trying to stay true to his Christian values. You see it happen all the time in history, with Christians causing wars, violence, and despair while justifying their actions by using the bible. With Reynaud though, it is very interesting to read his thoughts and see the hypocrisy occurring on a smaller scale. When the chapter is dedicated to Reynaud’s perspective, you always see him having internal conflicts, because he is always apologizing to his father whenever a terrible non-Christian thought pops into his head. The way I see it, he has the best of intentions at hand, wanting to preserve the stability of the town and protect it from radical change. It is pretty tough to do so when a stranger prances in, opens up a chocolate shop, and plans to have a chocolate festival on the most holy day of the Christian religion. However, doing so at the expense of the happiness of the townspeople is obviously not the way to go.

As an extension to this I find it very amusing how whenever Joanne writes in the perspective of Vianne, then I feel that Vianne is the good person, along with all of her friends. However, when she switches to the perspective of Reynaud, I then feel sorry for him. I feel bad that no one is listening to him when he is trying his best to guide them the right way. I feel bad that he is practically the only person in the town who is still fasting, while the others are feasting away at chocolate. But then sometimes he does have the occasional bad thought about inflicting harm upon Vianne, and then that just makes me vilify him again. But maybe the author is doing this on purpose, which might be the reason why she offers two points of view in this novel.

In terms of the authors writing style, I think that Joanne Harris does a very good job at invoking feelings of suspense. By reading the last page of section 2, I can tell that from now on, everything is going to start hitting the fan. Reading that conversation between Paul and Reynaud at the end really felt like a movie scene when two villains have a plan to get rid of the protagonist once and for all. But there was a twist though, because Reynaud forbids Paul to do anything to Vianne, because he was his responsibility, and anything bad that happened would be on the church. I also feel that Joanne Harris is good at not being too obvious. For example, on page 187, when Guillaume said that he would most likely not adopt the stray dog, instead of saying that the dog has already grown on Guillaume, she writes, “ When I looked back a moment later, the dog was sitting on Guilaume’s knees, eating the Florentines. Anouk looked at me and winked.”