Chocolat

Chocolat, directed by Lasse Hallström, is a 2000 film based on the novel Chocolat by Joanne Harris. Adapted by screenwriter Robert Nelson Jacobs, Chocolat tells the story of a young mother, played by Juliette Binoche, who arrives at the fictional, repressed French village of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes with her six-year-old daughter and opens La Chocolaterie Maya, a small chocolaterie. Her chocolate quickly begins to change the lives of the townspeople.

The film was shot in the village of Flavigny-sur-Ozerain in Burgundy, France, and on the Rue De L'ancienne Poste in Beynac on the Dordogne River in Dordogne, France. The river scenes were filmed at Fonthill Lake at Fonthill Bishop in Wiltshire, England.

Like her ancestors, Vianne Rocher (Juliette Binoche) obeys the North wind, drifting across the country as it blows. In the winter of 1959, the clever wind leads her to a tranquil French village, where she and her daughter Anouk (Victoire Thivisol) open a small chocolaterie. The store imbues both wonder and angst within the classical villagers as it opens during the forty days of Lent.

Soon, Vianne's profound allure and savory confections enlivens a married couple's aphrodisia, encourages an elderly man's secret love, brings rapport with a willful diabetic, and comforts an awkward woman who longs to leave her drunk and abusive husband. Nonetheless, the devout Parish curate, Comte Paul de Reynaud (Alfred Molina), sees Vianne as an amoral provocateur and quietly contests against her. The battle peaks when a band of river gypsies camp on the village outskirts and Vianne finds herself attracted to the Irish wanderer Roux, (Johnny Depp), whose attraction to Vianne is reciprocal.