Comte making a pact with the devil?

Ring911, this is the second thread in which you have unfairly dubbed Chocolat "Anti-Christian."

First, let me clarify: Vianne is not the devil. She is not a stand-in for the devil. She doesn't even have devil-like qualities. She helps people. For example, judging by the posts you have made on here, you might call Vianne's encouragement of Josephine to run away from Serge immoral, since they were married--but was Serge's treatment of her that of a husband who loves his wife? Or a man who views a woman as an object? (He even told the Comte, "Remember when her father collaborated with the Germans, and nobody wanted to touch her, except for me! And this is how she repays me?!" This is a clue that Serge doesn't really see Josephine as another human, but an pobject--a possession.) And before Vianne came along, Josephine felt trapped, caged--and then she was liberated, and free to choose her own way. Saved, if you will.

Vianne also helped the Comte--but you have chosen to look at her aid as temptation alone. You have overlooked that the Comte was not a happy man: his wife left him, so among many other emotions he was experiencing at the loss, he also felt powerless. He reasserted his power through controlling his town in the insular, judgemental, nonaccepting waym which we saw in the movie. (For instance, he was the one in the beginning of the movie to shut the church door to the wind. Everyone is ready for a change from the Comte's rigid ways, except for the Comte himself.) He was also very concerned with image: when he helps Serge, he really only concentrates on making him look physically respectable--Serge isn't shown to have gained much progress in his religious studies; and he tells the women in the beauty parlor that Anouk is illegitimate merely to get a reaction, which later leads him to forbidding people to enter the shop. Tell me, would you go out of your way to ostracize a single mother and daughter who have recently moved into your neighborhood, when you found out that the mother had never been married?

And honestly, the Comte's treatment of the Romany (and his encouraging the townspeople to shun them) should speak for itself.

When he felt himself losing even this power, the Comte went to God to ask for his assistance. Then, God directed him to Vianne's chocolaterie. (You seem to have ignored this detail in your analysis.) The reason God (in the movie) did this is because it had been highlighted all throughout the story that the chocolate Vianne used, and the way in which she prepared it, had certain medicinal/healing properties. When the Comte finally had some of the chocolate, he became enlightened and realized that he had denied himself for no reason. When he saw the error of his ways, and realized that after all his posturing that he was in fact in the wrong, he finally wept, and released everything he had bottled up inside.

Afterward, when he was drained (and asleep in the window), Vianne helps him by giving him water. She does not pass judgement onto him, like he had all those times onto her, because she understands his pain. She is not evil in any way.

You mention that the town was tossed into chaos when the Comte "indulged in sin"--are you talking about the Spring festival near the end, where everyone in the town gathered together? Do you think all festivals are merely chaotic immorality? (The comparison of the festival in Chocolat to Moses discovering the golden idol is a gross and unjust exaggeration.)

I suggest that you really listen to Pere Henri's sermon at the end of the movie, in which he talks about Jesus's humanity, and how we should measure goodness by who we include, not exclude, which is what you seem to have wanted the Comte (and the rest of the town) to do to Vianne.

In general, I feel as if you decided in your mind that Vianne was this evil woman, and then refused to look at what she was going through in the movie amidst "tempting" people. I think you should read this review: http://www.unomaha.edu/jrf/chocolat.htm, which examines the religious themes that run through the movie. One part in particulat sticks out: "Vianne’s strength is not in her recipes, rather it is in her ability to give unconditional love and acceptance to others in spite of their flaws and foibles."

Religious themes aside, how was this movie at all anti-America? The only time I think America ever entered the movie (so to speak) was when Pere Henri was singing/dancing to Elvis Presley.


Don't move! You're surrounded by armed basterds!

IGNORE.

RELIGION DESERVES TO LOOK BAD.