criterionforum.org

Claire Denis immediately revealed her command of cinematic form with her debut feature, drawn from her own experience of growing up in French colonial Africa. After many years of living in France, a white woman (Mireille Perrier) returns to the town in Cameroon where she spent her childhood. There, she reflects on her past, including her relationship with Protée (Isaach de Bankolé), a Black servant with whom she formed a friendship while not fully grasping the divides that governed their worlds. Already displaying many of Denis’s artistic signatures—including an immersive sense of place; an elliptical approach to storytelling; and an interest in complex dynamics of race, sex, and power—Chocolat is an evocatively impressionistic yet piercingly precise examination of the psychology of colonialism.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by director Claire Denis and director of photography Robert Alazraki, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
New interview with Denis
Interview with actor Isaac de Bankolé from 2011
Newsreel footage from the film’s Cannes premiere
Trailers
New English subtitle translation
PLUS: An essay by critic Jennifer Wilson

New cover by Michael Boland

a little surprised this is blu-ray only.