Chocolat

France, shortly before the beginning of the 20th century: In search of new talent, the clown George Footit (James Thierrée) discovers Chocolat (Omar Sy), who has escaped from slavery and is traveling the country with a small traveling circus. The two outsiders become friends and develop a joint stage show that quickly becomes a huge crowd puller. Performances in the biggest circus houses in Paris eventually make Footit and Chocolat famous throughout the country. But the great fame not only drives a wedge into the friendship of the two, but also attracts the attention of the police. Chocolat finds that he has many enemies who will not tolerate the success of a black artist.... “Être chocolat“ (”to be chocolate") is an expression that everyone in France knows. It means: to be the smeared one, the stupid one. But hardly anyone knows how the chocolate gets there.The clown Rafael Padilla, alias Chocolat, to whom the expression goes back, has also fallen into oblivion. [...] Above all, however, together with his white partner Footit, he is regarded as the inventor of the figure of Stupid Augustus, the “smeared” one, who has been an integral part of clowning ever since. [...] It speaks volumes that Omar Sy, more than a hundred years after the clown Chocolat, is France's first black film star. However, this parallel between Sy and Chocolat fits extremely well, as it goes beyond the film and puts a finger in the wounds of the present. [...] How Footit “trains” his sidekick Chocolat with unrelenting severity, how Chocolat provokes him and how both bring the audience to the boil with racist humor in the circus ring is a small drama festival: laughter and tears, humor and cynicism intertwine until the cinema audience realizes that although the circus offers an anarchic space for unrestrained laughter, not everything is allowed to be laughed at. In the case of Footit and Chocolat, the core issue is the justification or preservation of France's colonial order, in which the colonized must believe himself to be happy despite the bad game - and the stupid Chocolat allows himself to be spanked anew by the authoritarian Footit with a smile in every number.” (Marguerite Seidel, at: filmdienst.de)