write a research paper using my outline, works cited, and scene selection:
The Silent Tensions of Empire: Postcolonial Desire and Power in Claire Denis’s Chocolat (1988)
- Themes: Postcolonial Film Theory, National Cinema, Feminist Film Theory
- Focus: Explore how Chocolat addresses postcolonial tensions through the lens of memory, race, and gender. Analyze the use of mise en scène, framing, and character relationships to reflect the power dynamics of French colonialism in Cameroon.
*Claire Denis is a major figure in national and postcolonial cinema; her personal connection to Africa makes this a rich subject. You can also tie in feminist film theory by looking at how gender and race intersect in the film.
The Personal as Political in Chocolat (1988): Postcolonial Identity and Memory in Claire Denis’ Cinema
Introduction:
- Claire Denis’s Chocolat (1988) offers a profoundly personal yet politically active meditation on French colonialism in Cameroon from the autobiographical memories of childhood experienced by Denis herself in colonial Africa.
- Thesis: Through the broken eye of memory, Claire Denis uses mise en scène, composition, and character relations to expose the unsaid but lingering tensions of race, gender, and power in French colonialism.
- Framework: This argument is indebted to postcolonial film theory, feminist film theory, and national cinema theory in addressing how Denis reworking personal memory as a political act.
Historical and Theoretical Context
- Postcolonial Film Theory:
- Postcolonial films have difficulty addressing the lingering effects of empire, showing how colonialism inscribes identity and relations even decades after political independence (Le Corff).
- Denis’s film is a sort of “screen memory,” revealing repressed traumas and contradictions in outlines of story (Reis).
- National Cinema and Denis’s Stand:
- Though Denis is French, her films destabilize the French nation-state discourses and present a subversive insider view.
- Chocolat occupies a threshold space between French national cinema and postcolonial transnational cinema.
- Feminist Film Theory:
- Gender and race are inseparably linked within colonial settings, where white femininity and Black masculinity are constructed and regulated under colonial power (Grieve).
Memory, Race, and Postcolonial Desire
- Adult France’s return to Cameroon elicits fragmented memories that amalgamate nostalgia and guilt, representing the unstable dynamic of colonizer and colonized.
- Personal memory clearly cannot be separated from the political reality of colonial history.
- Desire and Repression:
- The relationship between young France and Protée is filled with innocent desire but also speaks to the racialized and sexualized desires characteristic of colonial systems (Reis).
- Protée is the “prohibited” object of desire in an austere system that savagely patrols interracial intimacy.
Mise en Scène, Framing, and Power Dynamics
- Mise en Scène and Visual Texture:
- Costumes, surfaces, and environmental textures distinguish colonizer from colonized; Protée’s practical, plain attire contrasts with Madame Aimée’s lovely, flowing gowns, symbolizing racial and class lines (Grieve).
- Framing and Spatial Relations:
- Physical separation among characters tends to be sustained by conscious framing, visually symbolic of the underlying walls of race and power.
- Protée’s actual placement in the frame, often on doorways, thresholds, or servant spaces, reinforces his role of being between in and out, human and object.
- Space and Silence:
- Silence is the politics of language in Chocolat. It shows how much colonial anxiety there is hiding below the surface level and not spoken but overwhelmingly felt deep inside.
Race and Gender
- Gendered Power and Colonial Hierarchies:
- Madame Aimée’s conflicted desire for Protée illustrates the paradoxes of power and vulnerability in the lives of colonial women.
- Her double positioning as both oppressor (white colonizer) and oppressed (woman in patriarchy) renders her difficult to position within the conventional gender binary.
- Sexual Politics of Empire:
- Protée’s rejection of Madame Aimée’s overtures is a very rare assertion of agency by a colonized subject, and highlights the intersectionality of sexual and racial politics.
- The film criticizes the way colonialism markets Black bodies, although it does take into account the acts of resistance which undermine such systems.
Conclusion
- Claire Denis’s Chocolat transforms memoir recollections into a fiery political critique to illuminate how the colonizing power continues to haunt in memory, identity, and lust.
- Through unobtrusive mise en scène, elliptical narration, and strict interrelation of characters, Denis undermines the implied violence of the empire without didactic polemic.
- Chocolat is a great example of how films that are postcolonial can reveal crossroads of gender, race, and memory and challenge viewers to seek out conflicts that will be lasting long after the official dismantling of colonialism.
Works Cited
Bordwell, David, and Kristin Thompson. Film Art: An Introduction. 11th ed., McGraw Hill, 2016.
Grieve, Alexandra. “Surface Tensions: Race, Costume and the Politics of Texture in Claire Denis’s Chocolat (1988).” Film, Fashion & Consumption, vol. 10, no. 2, 2021, pp. 335–352. www.doi.org/10.1386/ffc_00029_1.
Le Corff, Isabelle. “Postcolonialism in Claire Denis’s Chocolat and White Material: Africa Under the Skin.” Black Camera, vol. 10, no. 1, 2018, pp. 7–25. www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/blackcamera.10.1.07.
Reis, Levilson C. “France’s Colonial Family Romance, Protée’s Postcolonial Fantasies, and Claire Denis’s ‘Screen’ Memories.” Studies in European Cinema, vol. 10, no. 2–3, 2013, pp. 99–113. www.digitalcommons.otterbein.edu/mlanguages_fac/13/.
Scene Selection
- Scene: Opening Sequence (00:00–03:00) — France (adult) gazes out over the Cameroonian landscape. – Sets nostalgic but ambivalent tone of memory and return.
- Postcolonial Film Theory
- Scene: Transition to flashback (05:45–07:30) — France as a child, with Protée silently guiding her.
- Illustrates the lingering yet unspoken racial hierarchies already internalized
National Cinema and Denis’s Stand
- Scene: Dinner scene (22:30–26:00) — The colonial administrators gossip about “the natives.” – Reflects the contradictions of French “civilizing” rhetoric vs. private colonial prejudices.
Feminist Film Theory
- Scene: Madame Aimée and France walking together (12:00–13:30)
- Establishes Madame Aimée’s dual role: both agent of colonial power and constrained woman.
Memory, Race, and Postcolonial Desire
Adult France’s return and Memory Fragmentation
- Scene: Adult France at the well (03:10–04:30)
- The well as a symbol of buried memory; non-verbal reawakening of childhood experience.
Desire and Repression
- Scene: France watches Protée bathe (45:50–47:00)
- Young, innocent but forbidden gaze reflecting racialized sexual undercurrents.
- Scene: Protée lifting the fallen door (41:20–43:00)
- Silent moment of physical prowess and objectification — underlying colonial eroticism.
Mise en Scène and Visual Texture
- Scene: Protée cleaning the furniture (10:45–12:00)
- His rough work clothes contrast sharply with the polished colonial environment.
Framing and Spatial Relations
- Scene: Protée framed in the kitchen doorway (37:00–38:30)
- Threshold imagery — literally in-between spaces, not fully “inside” the home.
Space and Silence
- Scene: Tense tea scene after Protée’s refusal (1:04:30–1:06:50)No direct confrontation — pure silence communicates fracture of social order.
Race and Gender
Gendered Power and Colonial Hierarchies
- Scene: Madame Aimée offering herself to Protée (59:00–1:02:30)
- Her desire and humiliation reveal colonial gender paradoxes and vulnerabilities.
Sexual Politics of Empire
- Scene: Protée’s ultimate rejection and physical distancing (1:03:00–1:04:30)
- An act of resistance — challenging colonial sexual entitlement.
Scene: Final shot of France and Protée’s unbridgeable distance (1:40:00–1:43:00)
- Memory and political trauma remain unresolved — the “invisible wall” endures.