Director

Claire Denis

Cast list

Isaach De Bankolé: Protée
Giulia Boschi: Aimée Dalens
François Cluzet: Marc Dalens
Jean-Claude Adelin: Luc
Laurent Arnal: Machinard
Jean Bediebe: Prosper
Jean-Quentin: Châtelain Courbassol
Emmanuelle Chaulet: Mireille Machinard
Kenneth Cranham: Boothby

Credits

Writing: Claire Denis and Jean-Pol Fargeau

Synopsis

A young French woman returns to the vast silence of West Africa to contemplate her childhood days in a colonial outpost in Cameroon. Her strongest memories are of the family's houseboy, Protee - a man of great nobility, intelligence and beauty - and the intricate nature of relationships in a racist society.

Reviews

Elbert Ventura, Colonial Architecture. Reverse Shot (online magazine)

Academic Articles:

Memory Process and Feminine Desire in Claire Denis’s Chocolat and Brigitte Rouan’s Outremer by Celine Philibert. Journal of Third World Studies, Vol. 13, No. 2 (FALL 1996), pp. 173-187

Figuring Intrusion: Nancy and Denis by Laura McMahon. Contemporary French & Francophone Studies, Vol. 12, No. 4 (Oct 2008), pp. 463-470

Notes Toward a Theory of Nostalgia: Childhood and the Evocation of the Past in Two European “Heritage” Films by Adam Muller. New Literary History, Vol. 37, No. 4 (FALL 2006), pp. 739-760