Lauren Sustar Microtheme: Chocolat Chocolat is a film that says so much without having to say hardly anything at all.

It is by no means exciting or intense, but it does cause one to think and to dig deeper than just what the characters voice. I think the main themes of this movie are racism and identity. Each character is trying to find and maintain their identity without crossing certain lines that are inevitably present. There is most definitely tension between the Africans and the French, although it is worse with some than others. Delpich, the planter, openly degrades the Africans and treats them as inferior to himself, while Luc Segalen befriends the Africans and chooses to stay with them over his white companions. The relationships displayed in this film are ones of uncertainty and contradiction, especially relationships involving Prote. In some scenes, Prote and France seem to be the best of friends. He is her protector and her care giver. However, in other scenes she calls him and treats him like the servant he is paid to be. She selfishly wants him all for herself. Protes relationship with Aimee is strained as well. Sometimes she wants him close to her and other times she coldly pushes him away. In one scene, Marc Dalens is talking to France whom he assumes is sleeping. He tells her about the horizon and how the closer a person gets to it, the farther it moves away. I think the line of the horizon is an analogy to the line between the whites/French and the blacks/Africans. Like the horizon, that division does not truly exist. Just as the sky does not really touch the earth at a dividing line, there is no dividing line between the two races; or at least there should not be. We are all the same aside from the color of our skin, and yet there has been and sometimes still is so much tension between people of different races/nationalities. And the closer we come to

the line that divides us, the further it seems we have to go. We have created the idea of racism when in reality it does not really exist. We should not let something as minute as skin color break us apart and craft animosity. France, in a way, symbolizes innocence in my eyes. She loves Prote regardless of the color of his skin or his heritage. He is her friend and protector, and I think he loves her too. If only the world saw race the way children do.