So, today’s Fair Food Fight Film is Chocolat!

This one seems to be a love-it-or-hate-it movie: either you love it for being gentle and comforting, or you hate it for being predictable and treacly. I don’t have a dog in this fight whatsoever, mainly because this movie is so useful for Supporting Actor Bingo that I’m just pleased it got made because now I can get from Nina Foch to Miranda Richardson like THAT.

I will, however, put up a fight that Chocolat is a great food movie, because food plays such a main role that it’s hardly even a metaphor any more; without any of the conflict in which chocolate plays a part, you’d still have a perfectly good short film about a lady in a snappy cloak who comes to town and makes awesome goodies in a big gorgeous montage of mole sauce and hot chocolate and almond cake, and the village loves everything and parties forever, the end.

Plus, I’m just a sucker for a nice mise-en-scene every once in a while.

Johannes Vermeer, Juliette Binoche with Milk Pitcher, 1658

Just saying.