Director: Claude Chabrol
Country: France/Switzerland
Year: 2000
Runtime: 100 minutes
French with English Subtitles
Awards: Montréal World Film Festival - Best Actress, Prix Louis Delluc
Claude Chabrol is one of the last French New Wave directors of the 60's and 70's still making films that excite us with their intelligence. The audience is not visually or aurally assaulted, but is required to do what Hitchcock, one of Chabrol's heroes, required of his audience-to think and to discover while they are being entertained. Mr. Chabrol mixes his directing with Charlotte Armstrong's novel "The Chocolate Cobweb" and the acting of Anna Mouglalis, Jacque Dutronc and Isabelle Huppert. The result is a chocolate blended with the Hitchcockian spice of "Suspicion," "Rebecca" and "Notorious." A chance to see the work of Isabelle Huppert is always a pleasure. Huppert has worked many times with Chabrol throughout her entire career. An example is "A Story of Women." Ms. Huppert is the great face, subtle and mysterious, of French cinema over the last 30 years. French Cinema has been a love of American filmgoers for the entire history of film, and Chabrol's MERCI POUR LE CHOCOLAT feeds our love not with an M&M, but rather a box of Swiss Chocolate. Be sure to stay for the credits. (Synopsis by Fred Linch.)
Principal Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Jacques Dutronc, Anna Mouglalis, Rodolphe Pauly, Brigitte Catillon, Michel Robin, Mathieu Simonet
Screenwriters: Caroline Eliacheff, Claude Chabrol
Producer: Marin Karmitz
Director of Photography: Renato Berta
Website Link:
http://www.mk2.com/new/merci_pour_le_chocolat/index.html