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In the same way that Eat Drink Man Woman makes you crave authentic Chinese food, and Babette's Feast can make you want to attempt caviar on fresh blinis or "quails in their coffins," Chocolat can make you crave serious European-style chocolates.
Many will remember the 2000 sentimental film, in which Juliette Binoche's character shleps her baggage and her daughter into yet another European town, sets up a chocolaterie, and proceeds to craft chocolates of such exquisite deliciousness that they free the prude for licentious nights, rejoin bitterly divided relatives, and even offer a serviceable balm for spousal abuse. (Behold! The power of antioxidants!)
The film, which is all about metaphors for sensuality, probably offers its most sensual scenes when Binoche's character whips up the chocolates in her kitchen. Watching this comely French thespian dip almonds in molten chocolate, serve up "nipples of Venus," and pour real, hot, drinking chocolate from a copper pot into a white mug, then crown it with a fluffy cumulus cloud of whipped cream, truly is enough to make you want to go to pastry school.
The cineastes programming the Movies on the Plaza nights in the Central West End (see schedule below) have come up with a clever tie-in. On Thursday, May 26, they'll screen Chocolat as part of their free, outdoor film series, happening right next to the fountain (on Maryland Plaza near Euclid Avenue), and next door, Bissinger's at Maryland Plaza will handle the overflow of viewers unable to resist the pull of the cocoa bean.
Bissinger's will offer drink and sweet specials both inside the café and on the patio before, during, and after the film. Consider the chocolate-covered wine grapes, English almond toffee, the bear-claw caramels, those daring porcini mushroom truffles, and so on.
Sweet mother of ganache, there's gonna be a stampede at the candy counter.
