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Food movies analysis

Chocolat

Chocolat is both a love story and a story of tolerance and integration. But my focus is principally on the food that is not only the background of the movie, but it also play an important role in shaping the relationships between the characters. Vianne, the principal character, opens a chocolate shop in a conservative and rural village of the post-war France. Her behavior and attitude create skepticism between the members of the little community of the village, who seems to reject her on the base of prejudices. The hostilities cease when they discover that her art in preparing chocolate sweets is sublime, and the villagers let the delicious taste of chocolate fill their mouths and their feelings. We can understand how a food contributes to establish relationships between the individuals. It is possible that we tend to judge people in base of their diet and their food preparation skills; as we can see from the movie, a person like Vianne would have never been accepted in such a closed society because of her values and behavior, but the chocolate give her the opportunity to become part of that society. We can say that chocolate, or food in general, is an instrument of socialization.

The second aspect that the movie point out is the relationship between culture and food. The fact that Vianne add a little bit of red pepper to her chocolate, to give it that particular taste that capture everyone who tries it, belongs to her tradition. It is something about her culture. The food becomes a witness of  culture such as the Maya culture (the one that Vianne belongs to) and is related to magical belifs. Chocolate is considered a sort of drug, which has the properties to reawaken the passions and the desires, and that gives power and self-confidence to the people who eat it, as we can see in the movie when the people find the force to let their prejudices beside and to change their minds and become more inclined toward cultural relativism.

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