Movie Chocolat

The Monday prompt Comedian forcibly reminded me of a movie, because the truth is that I accidentally published the same post twice, and now here I am, editing and making a new publication!

Monsieur Chocolat is a film based on real events. It tells the story of a Black slave who escaped and somehow made his way to France.

In France, he was part of a small, provincial circus where he performed as a primitive caveman, meant only to provoke a bit of fear through the “novelty” of his act.

As a casual companion, there was a down‑on‑his‑luck clown who had once enjoyed his glory days in Paris, the great capital.

That’s how they met, and the white clown came up with the idea of creating a new act in which the protagonist would be a Black clown. There had never been one before. Being a free Black man at that time was unusual in many parts of the world.

Thus began the training, practice, trial and error until they found the key to what made people laugh. They became famous, to the point that a major circus in the capital offered them a contract.

Fame grew, money flowed like they had never seen before, but then emptiness arrived with excess and poor decisions. Making people laugh was no longer enough for the Black clown. And that was the beginning of the end.

I hate to ruin a movie, so I’ll end my spoiler here by recommending that you watch it. There’s much in that story that helps us understand the world as it was—and, hard as it may be to believe, it hasn’t changed that much.