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Merci
pour le Chocolat (2000)
DIRECTOR: Claude Chabrol
CAST: Jacques Dutronc; Anna Mouglalis; Rodolphe Pauly; Brigitte Catillon
SYNOPSIS
Milka
Muller and Andre Polonski re-marry after 18 years. Milka runs the family's chocolat
factory, and Andre is a pianist, whose wife died of a car accident a few years
before. They have a son of 18 years old who has neither interest nor talent in
playing piano. One day, a 18-year old talented piano student comes to visit. She
claims herself Andre's daughter, who was mistaken at the hospital on the birthday....the
secret is revealing......
NOTE
Isabelle is elegant - dresses well and behaves
well, moves quiet like a ghost. Martin
(October 18, 2002)
Was I first in
line? You bet! Did I like the film? You bet! Correct all the way: This film was,
for me, everything that Huit Femmes was not. It was a serious work analyzing sociopathy,
its roots and its causes and perhaps even its seeds inside us all. And in its
way it also played games with what marriage means, what many men will settle for,
the ways people act duplicitously as a matter of course -- an interesting, very
Chabrolian brew of insanity! Isabelle gave
an absolutely perfect performance, throwing into question exactly who this
woman was and what she was after all the way through. Her helpfulness was perfectly
studied -- a performance this character had completely gotten used to giving,
in lieu of developing her actual self, pursuing her own course in life. IH knows
exactly how to play such a woman. It was an amazing performance, and actually
succeeded in humanizing this "creature", bringing Mika into the realm
of understandable. Only IH could have played the role so well. Chabrol,
in my opinion, did slip up at the very end, having Isabelle settle on the couch
as if she's crawling back into the womb, as the final part in that continuous,
long last shot in which the camera lingers on guilty Isabelle for a number of
minutes. Isabelle should have been instructed to DO something other than look
blank in that long close-up shot (though she does cry). I'd have liked a real
meltdown, having the film end with a scream of sorts, instead of with quiet. Or
am I just too American?! But overall the film
worked amazingly well. I liked it! And with its relatively wide opening here --
it's on at least 5 or 6 screens around the metropolitan area -- it will surely
climb a bit back up the chart -- maybe it'll hit $500,000 in the States, not bad
for a film with very little publicity. What it has going for it is Isabelle (and
Chabrol).
in this year (2002) of four releases
with IH, I'm glad I saw this one last. - FORUM
QUOTE
---
AWARD
- Best Actress, Montreal International
Film Festival 2000, shared with Chinese Gong Li
-
Prix Louis Delluc, France's film award by a jury of critics, December, 2000
TRIVIA
For
the first time in the history
of César (created in 1976 by Georges Cravenne), one actress entered
"top 5" nominations for two films: Isabelle Huppert. The regulation
only retains her nomination for "Saint-cyr". Thus, "Merci pour
le Chocolat" left zero in running Cesar Awards which surprises many people.
Two months before, the film just won Prix Louis Delluc, French Film of the year
by a jury of critics.
Even if Isabelle was so favorite, she was still defeated
by Dominique Blanc, who starred in a very maginal film "Stand-by"
with only 40,000 entrees in France.
REVIEW
French
Lessons in suspense, The Observer, Jun 10, 2001
Merci pour le chocolat, The Guardian, Jun 8, 2001
The
Views of Female Things, The Mirror, Jan 2001,
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