France Dalens (Mireille Perrier, LOVE WITHOUT PITY) arrives in Cameroon to revisit the land where she lived as a child (played by Cécile Ducasse) with her deputy father Marc (François Cluzet, L'ENFER), her mother Aimée (Giulia Boschi, THE SICILIAN), and house servant Protée (Isaach De Bankolé, Claire Denis' WHITE MATERIAL and Pedro Costa's CASA DE LAVA). Marc is away a lot (ostensibly on duty but it seems he enjoys his travels from the notes and sketches he keeps in a journal) and Aimée with Protée (who plays nanny to France, sometimes at the cost of his own dignity). Racial and sexual tensions come to a head when the Dalens are forced to extend the hospitality of their home to the inhabitants of a downed plane: including its captain (Didier Flamand, DON'T LOOK BACK), disagreeable coffee planter Delpich (Jacques Denis, THIS SWEET SUCCESS), another deputy (Laurent Arnal, QUEEN MARGOT), and his wife (Emmanuelle Chaulet, BOYFRIENDS AND GIRLFRIEND), along with a virile ex-seminarian (Jean-Claude Adelin, SCENE OF THE CRIME) who needles Protée over his servitude and seemingly unrequited attraction to his mistress.

CHOCOLAT does not have a story so much as a lengthy recollection upon which the aptly-named France as an adult now recognizes the colonial obliviousness, insensitivity, and outright racism inherent (as well as objectification and sexual tension) in the reactions of her parents, their friends, acquaintances, and herself with colonial subjects (personified primarily by Protee, but the family cook, a village doctor, and Delpich's housekeeper are also verbally victimized). It was a lavish and assured directorial debut for Claire Denis (who returned to Cameroon with WHITE MATERIAL) with gorgeous cinematography by Robert Alazraki (MY FATHER'S GLORY and MY MOTHER'S CASTLE), production design by Thierry Flamand (THE CRIMSON RIVERS), and an understated score by Abdullah Ibrahim (NO FEAR, NO DIE). Kenneth Cranham (HELLBOUND: HELLRAISER II) appears briefly as a British colonial neighbor.