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Nightcap
Merci pour le
chocolat
review by Carrie Gorringe, 21 June 2002
28th Seattle International Film
Festival In Merci pour
le chocolat (Nightcap), Huppert re-teams with one of her
favorite directors, the legendary Claude Chabrol, to play out a
different interpretation of repression and madness. Huppert plays
the icily dignified Marie-Clare ("Mika") Muller, heiress to a Swiss
chocolate company fortune. On the surface, her life is nothing but
paradise: her company is a success, allowing her to donate
generously to her dearest social causes, and she is a respected
businesswoman, not a mere figurehead. She has been able to remarry
her ex-husband, André Polanski (Jacques Dutronc) eighteen years
after they divorced. Now Mika, André, and his eighteen-year-old son
from his second marriage, Guillaume (Rodolphe Pauly) are now
comfortably ensconced in Mika's mansion in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Problems begin, however, when a
young woman named Jeanne Pollet (Anna Mouglalis) becomes aware of
the rumor that she and Rodolphe, both born in the same hospital,
might have been switched at birth. Intrigued, she seeks him out and
discovers André. André, in turn, is impressed by the promise she
shows as a pianist, and he encourages her to come by regularly for
training. Mika seems content with this arrangement, even
encouraging, but Jeanne can't shake a sense of suspicion about Mika.
Jeanne's suspicions are confirmed when, one night, Mika spills some
of the hot chocolate she had prepared for Guillaume. Jeanne has it
tested, only to discover that it has been laced with a narcotic.
When she informs Guillaume of the test results, he brushes them off,
until he recalls that his mother had drunk some of Mika's special
nightcap before she was killed in a car crash…
In this, his fifty-third film,
Chabrol, like Hitchcock, further reworks the theme of psychological
tension that is his trademark. Here, his emphasis upon framing a
majority of shots in a medium-long to medium close-up range fixes
everything at a merciless remove; the audience's gaze begins as that
of a voyeur, then shifts to that of a jury, judging every element
with mistrust. The audience is now always on edge, waiting for the
next gesture or element to emerge from the clinically cold, but
evil, surfaces that comprise Mika and her house.
Without a strong actress in the
role of Mika, the entire film would fold in upon itself. Chabrol,
however, placed his trust in Huppert for the fourth time, and she
has repaid him fully. Her interpretation of Mika is so
unquestionably flawless, both because of her acting skills and that
milky-skinned, angular face; at the center of Mika's perfect face
and demeanor lies a mirror that deflects attention from her
homicidally ruthless streak -- until it is (perhaps?) too late. As
with her performance in The Piano Teacher, Huppert projects a
quietly unrepentant sense of menace, but one with an ostensible core
of vulnerability that adds to her mystery, especially when, as in
this case, the audience isn't given many details about her
character's psychological state. Is Mika merely a sociopath who is
unable to effectively conceal her criminal actions, or is she simply
so desperate for life on her own terms that she'll do anything in
order to achieve it? This is the situation that drives
Chocolat (and its audience) through to its final,
tension-laden, frames.
Seattle International Film Festival
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Directed
by:
Claude Chabrol
Starring:
Isabelle Huppert
Jacques Dutronc
Rated:
NR - Not Rated.
This film has not yet
been rated.
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