Merci pour le chocolat (2000)

October 25, 2000, release date

Directed by Claude Chabrol

Screenplay by Claude Chabrol and Caroline Eliacheff

Based on the novel The Chocolate Cobweb by Charlotte Armstrong

Music by Matthieu Chabrol

Edited by Monique Fardoulis

Cinematography by Renato Berta

Isabelle Huppert as Marie-Claire Muller (aka Mika)

Jacques Dutronc as André Polonski

Anna Mouglalis as Jeanne Pollet

Rodolphe Pauly as Guillaume Polonski

Brigitte Catillon as Louise Pollet

Michel Robin as Patou Dufreigne

Mathieu Simonet as Axel

Lydia Andrei as Lisbeth

Véronique Alain as Madame le Maire

Isolde Barth as Pauline

Sibylle Blanc as Nathalie

Distributed by MK2 Diffusion

Produced by MK2 Productions, CAB Productions, France 2 Cinema, Television Suisse Romande, YMC Productions

“A tendency to desire evil, often with a certain pleasure.”

—Definition of the word perversity according to the Petit Larousse.

Isabelle Huppert is the star of Merci pour le chocolat in every way imaginable. She carries the film, with its focus on the perversity of her character Marie-Claire Muller, who goes by the nickname Mika. Marie-Claire has most of the other characters fooled—but not the viewers. We are given the same hints that another character, Jeanne Pollet, sees. Although Jeanne’s perspective provides glimpses into Marie-Claire’s character, and Marie-Claire doesn’t appear in every scene, the film belongs to Marie-Claire and thus to Isabelle Huppert.

The film is based on Charlotte Armstrong’s The Chocolate Cobweb. The story is updated for the period in which the film was made (it was released in October 2000), but Merci pour le chocolat is a remarkably close adaptation of Armstrong’s novel, which was published in 1948. The director Claude Chabrol pays homage to the source material by incorporating Marie-Claire’s crocheting project: a large afghan in the shape of a cobweb! The yarn is even a chocolate-brown color.

For more information, click on each name listed below:

◊ Isabelle Huppert

◊ Claude Chabrol

◊ Charlotte Armstrong

Merci pour le chocolat opens with only a few credits—four short lists—and then a marriage ceremony: André Polonksy and Marie-Claire Muller are marrying each other for the second time. Various snippets of conversation among the guests at the wedding reception provide some odd observations that put viewers a bit on edge, for example:

◊ Patou Dufreigne, the manager of the Muller Chocolate factory, which Marie-Claire owns, says of André: “I admire him as a pianist but, as a man, he bothers me.”

◊ Dufreigne tells the same group of wedding guests, “A low-key wedding is better this time” and “The first one was so luxurious. There were 500 guests. And look where it got them.”

◊ The woman who officiated at the wedding ceremony tells Marie-Claire, “I know you like my own daughter.” Marie-Claire responds, “Personne me faite, ma chérie” (translated as “I’m no one’s daughter”).

Even when others are speaking or starting their lines of dialogue, the camera focuses on Marie-Claire. It’s almost as if she is listening to each conversation, but the way that she is photographed, viewers know that this is impossible.

The remaining credits appear over shots of a ferry crossing a rather large body of water. The ferry slips toward a dock, and the camera pans down to two women seated at a restaurant table across the street from the dock. The women are waiting for other people, Axel and Jeanne. When Axel and Jeanne arrive, the four order meals. Then the film cuts to them on the restaurant’s outdoor patio, where they drink coffee and have dessert. From their conversations, viewers ascertain that Axel and Jeanne are the children of the two women, but nothing is said directly about the relationships between the characters. Axel asks Jeanne if she would like to see a movie, and his mother produces a newspaper. While searching for theater listings, she finds Marie-Claire Muller’s and André Polonski’s wedding portrait and wedding announcement, both of which bring up a rather odd familial secret.

The connection between the Polonskis and the Pollets is explained by Axel’s mother, who knows the secret, to Jeanne, who is instantly curious about this story that she has never heard before. When Jeanne was born, there had been a mix-up at the hospital. It seems André Polonski thought Jeanne was his daughter, when his wife had actually given birth to his son, Guillaume. The hospital had run out of baby bracelets and used the first three letters of the families’ names (P-O-L) to identify each newborn. A nurse showed the wrong baby to André, and Jeanne’s father had to straighten out the facts.

Jeanne, still curious about this bit of family lore, decides to visit the Polonski home, where she introduces herself as the Polonski daughter that almost was. She shares her musical talent with André: Both play the piano. Jeanne is not above using her newfound knowledge about the name mix-up to insinuate herself into André’s good graces, and she is more than happy to return to the Polonski home to take up André’s offer of some piano coaching.

But Jeanne is not so smitten with her good fortune that she ignores some warning signs. While studying a framed portrait of Lisbeth Polonski, André’s deceased wife and his son Guillaume’s mother, she sees Marie-Claire purposely spill some chocolate that she had prepared for Guillaume. Jeanne is suspicious, so she asks her boyfriend Axel to test the chocolate residue on her sweater. (She had accidently stained the sweater helping Marie-Claire with the cleanup.) Axel is a lab assistant at Louise Pollet’s criminal laboratory, and he finds that the chocolate stain contains residues of Rohypnol, a benzodiazepine.

(This blog post about Merci pour le chocolat contains spoilers.)

Jeanne warns Guillaume, who refuses to believe her at first. He calls her crazy and tells her that she is out of her mind. He is annoyed because Jeanne imitates his mother’s poses in the photographs around his home, and he doesn’t appreciate the way Jeanne fawns over his father by imitating André’s piano technique. But as Jeanne and Guillaume continue to talk, he begins to describe the circumstances of his mother death. As a result of that conversation, he begins to wonder if there is something to Jeanne’s story and to her suspicions about Lisbeth Polonski’s death. Now both become wary of Marie-Claire—and with good reason.

This post started with a definition of the word perversity, which is actually a quotation from a featurette on the DVD that I watched called “Introduction by Claude Chabrol.” The featurette is a short text essay, and its discussion of the word perversity sums up the character of Marie-Claire, although her name is never mentioned in the feature. Marie-Claire and her husband André share a conversation that reveals her perversity to her husband; viewers, on the other hand, already knew that she was capable of inflicting harm:

• Marie-Claire: “I have a knack for doing wrong.” [Film cuts to Jeanne and Guillaume in the car, with Jeanne driving. They hit a wall and the screen goes black.] “It’s wrong when I pervert good. The more violent it is, the more it appears good. I give, I give, I give, and I can never ask. I didn’t even ask to live.”

• André: “You received life like everyone else. You can’t deny that.”

• Marie-Claire: “I don’t understand. I never understand when you speak. I know what I am. I’m nothing. So . . . .”

• André: “What have you done to them? Tell me what you’ve done. You know how I cherish Guillaume.”

• Marie-Claire: “You should tell him. Guillaume’s like me and we’re not like you. My mother never thought I was a genius. I’m just a hanger-on.”

• André: “You don’t realize how much you’ve helped me. Thanks to you, I . . .”

• Marie-Claire: “I know, I help everyone. I helped Lisbeth too.”

• André: “But you adored Lisbeth . . .”

• Marie-Claire: “I let her do what she wanted. I only put Rohypnol in her cognac.”

• André: “Why did you do it? You loved her . . .”

• Marie-Claire: “That makes no difference. Instead of loving, I say, ‘I love you,’ and people believe me. I have real power in my mind. I calculate everything. It’s in God’s hands. I think I need to feel tired occasionally. You understand? Why am I telling you all this?”

• André: “What have you done to them?”

• Marie-Claire: “To whom?”

• André: “The children.”

• Marie-Claire: “Nothing. Why would I do anything to them? I put Rohypnol in the coffee. Are you angry?”

• André: “What a question!”

• Marie-Claire: “Are you angry?”

• André: “You fool everyone.”

• Marie-Claire: “Some people fool themselves.

The way that Marie-Claire talks with her husband about his son Guillaume and Jeanne, who he has been coaching, is chilling. And yet she has two lines that stand out for their lucidity. When André says that he cherishes Guillaume, Marie-Claire responds, “You should tell him,” which makes perfect sense because André devotes so much of his time and energy to his music. When André tells Marie-Claire that she has fooled everyone, she seems to imply that it was easy and that she really did nothing when she says, “Some people fool themselves.”

The first time that I saw Merci pour le chocolat, I was confused by the opening sequences, which made it hard for me to follow the plot and identify the relationships between all the characters. The opening wedding sequence ends with the woman who officiated at the marriage ceremony asking Marie-Claire about taking a photograph of the newlywed couple: “Sorry, I have a favor to ask. For the press . . . A photo. Just one little photo.” When the film cuts to Louise Pollet at the restaurant with her friend, the connection between them and Polonskis isn’t introduced right away. Louise Pollet and her friend sit at the restaurant waiting for other people, but viewers have to infer from the conversation that the two people are their children. And the newspaper story about Marie-Claire Muller’s and André Polonski’s wedding, accompanied by the wedding photo, comes rather late in the sequence, when Axel’s mother finally explains to Jeanne the story about André Polonski thinking that Jeanne instead of Guillaume was his child.

After my first viewing, I read Charlotte Armstrong’s book, which helped me follow the plot of the film more easily when I saw it a second time. The story is updated to 1999 and 2000, when the film was made and released, respectively, but Merci pour le chocolat is a remarkably close adaptation of Armstrong’s novel. Whether or not you read the novel, Merci pour le chocolat is one of those films where it really helps to pay attention to every detail. And Isabelle Huppert is superb in the role of Marie-Claire. The perversity of the character is unsettling, and Huppert doesn’t shy away from showing Marie-Claire’s complexity. The setting and the family seem ordinary on the surface, but Huppert’s performance allows us to see all the cracks.

My blog post about Merci pour le chocolat is my entry for the Vive la France! Blogathon. Click here for the complete list of participants and links to their entries. The blogathon is hosted by Lady Eve at Lady Eve’s Reel Life and Christian Esquevin at Silver Screen Modes. Click on each blog title to visit their respective blogs.

Strange Impersonation (1946)

March 16, 1946, release date

Directed by Anthony Mann

Screenplay by Mindret Lord

Based on a story by Anne Wigton, Lewis Herman

Music by Alexander Laszlo

Edited by John F. Link, Sr.

Cinematography by Robert Pittack

Brenda Marshall as Dr. Nora Goodrich

William Gargan as Dr. Stephen Lindstrom

Hillary Brooke as Arline Cole

George Chandler as J. W. Rinse, attorney

Ruth Ford as the real Jane Karaski

H. B. Warner as Dr. Mansfield, plastic surgeon

Lyle Talbot as Inspector Malloy, chief interrogator

Mary Treen as the nurse

Cay Forester as Roper, receptionist and interrogation witness

Dick Scott as the detective

Distributed by Republic Pictures

Produced by W. Lee Wilder Productions

Strange Impersonation is a strange film on many levels. Even the title is a bit strange. The film is categorized as a dramatic film noir, but it borders on science fiction: The main character, Doctor Nora Goodrich, has invented a new anesthetic and needs to discover its effects on humans. She and her lab assistant, Arline Cole, conduct the latest experiment in Nora’s apartment—on Nora herself. (Did many scientists experiment on themselves in 1946?) The film has plenty of noir characteristics, however: a scheming femme fatale, blackmail, a fatal fall from Nora’s balcony, characters assuming false identities.

The opening credits are very simple: white type on a black background. Many films noir are low-budget B films, but this one took simplicity to the maximum. The film starts with an overhead shot of New York City, then cuts to an exterior shot of the Wilmott Institute for Chemical Research. (I did an online search for “Wilmott Institute” but couldn’t find anything in New York City, past or present.) The film then cuts to Doctor Nora Goodrich giving a presentation at the institute about her new anesthetic.

Stephen Lindstrom, Nora’s fiancé, also works at the Wilmott Institute. He is in the audience and rushes to congratulate Nora on her presentation. Lindstrom is shown as the more ardent of the pair. He pursues Nora relentlessly and chides her about her professional demeanor. I can’t say that I blame him: There’s a rather comical scene in Nora’s living room, with Nora and Stephen sitting on her couch. He wants to steer the conversation to romance, but Nora responds to Stephen’s every conversation starter with intellectual prowess and knowledge.

Nora is focused on her science research (understatement!), and she sees no reason to include Stephen in her work. She would rather work with her lab assistant because the arrangement is much less complicated. In fact, Nora wants to keep her experiments secret from Stephen. The tension in the film comes partly from the romance versus science dichotomy: The film presents the choice as a pure dichotomy—for Nora. Stephen never faces this choice. He’s not a participant in the conversation when the subject comes up between Nora and Arline:

• Arline: “. . . Oh, Nora?”

• Nora: “Yes?”

• Arline: “When are you and Stephen going to marry?”

• Nora: “Oh, I don’t know. We haven’t made up our minds yet.”

• Arline: “You want to marry him, don’t you?”

• Nora: “Of course, I do. Why do you ask?”

• Arline: “I was just wondering.”

• Nora: “Why?”

• Arline: “Oh, I was wondering if I’d like working in a lab so much that I’d delay my marriage. And I don’t think so.”

• Nora: “Well, I guess that’s something we have to make up our own minds about. See you tonight, huh?”

• Arline: “Okay.”

(This blog post about Strange Impersonation contains spoilers.)

Nora’s experiment, in which she and Arline inject her with her new, untested anesthetic, becomes a horrible nightmare—literally. Arline apparently attempts to botch the experiment and harm Nora because she has decided that she wants Stephen for herself, and she does everything possible to win him over. She lies to Stephen; she lies to Nora. She uses their love for one another and their good instincts about each other to manipulate them both. Her machinations are squirm-inducing, but I was hooked: With one plot twist after another, I had no idea what to expect.

Nora’s ordeal comes to an end when she wakes up on her living room couch and finds Stephen trying to rouse her. Arline left after Nora took the injection, at the same time that Stephen arrived. All of the nightmare was apparently the result of taking the anesthetic. Stephen tells Nora that she never should have tried the anesthetic on herself, which is obvious to everyone except Nora. But her nightmare taught her one valuable 1940s postwar lesson: Marry Stephen. Nora is now desperate to do just that.

This film seems incredibly dated to me, someone watching it from the perspective of life in 2019. I wondered about the title: Strange Impersonation. Nora undergoes plastic surgery in the film to take on the identity of another character, so that’s an obvious source for the title. But is it also a reference to Arline’s role in Nora’s anesthetic-induced nightmare? Is it a brief commentary on Nora’s wish to be a successful research scientist, which is a “strange impersonation” for a woman in the postwar era, whose only business should be finding a mate and bearing children?

With all that Nora goes through, the overarching theme seems to be that Nora needs to come to her senses and marry her boyfriend Stephen Goodrich because that is what women ought to do. They certainly were encouraged to do that after World War II. Returning service members needed jobs, and women taking these jobs during the war needed to leave them in peacetime and make room for the men, the veterans.

Blue Sky Metropolis, a four-part documentary on PBS, focuses specifically on wartime industrial production and the peacetime transition to the flight and aerospace industries in California, but it also mentions the effects of these changes and attitudes on women and children. Click here for more information.

Strange Impersonation shows women that they have only two choices: a professional career full of loneliness—maybe even danger—or marriage. The film has two female leads, and much of the plot centers on their work and their intrigues, but it all leads to Nora running to Stephen in the end. So maybe Strange Impersonation really is more noir than drama: It paints a rather bleak picture about women’s options after World War II.

Once Nora injects herself in her own experiment, the plot becomes a little more fantastic and unbelievable, but I found myself wondering how it would all end and what would happen to Nora. It certainly kept my interest. Believe it or not, watching the film in 2019 may add to the suspense: If you were a woman living in 1946, in the postwar United States, maybe you guessed the ending rather easily.