Dame Judi Dench, in the garb of an elderly French matron, shifts her weight in her canvas chair, wraps her shawl round her shoulders and looks up from her tapestry work to peer balefully at a muddy English field.
“So here we are in Wiltshire,” she tells me, a distinct edge in her voice. “Or possibly Somerset.” Dramatic pause for effect. “Do you know, it might even be Dorset.”
They have killer timing, these theatrical dames, especially when they strive for dry humour. I inform her that here, near the village of Bruton, we’re in Somerset by a matter of a few kilometres. But one sees her point: this sodden, windswept part of the West Country seems an odd location for a film set in France.
It’s also a prosaic place to shoot a movie whose star actress trades on a “comment dit-on?” enigmatic quality. One can think of several kind things to say about Somerset, or possibly Wiltshire; but “enigmatic” is not a word that swiftly comes to mind.
Yet there she is, Juliette Binoche, tramping across a field, her beautiful dark eyes darting shyly about her, her trademark vestigial smile dancing on her lips in perpetual celebration of some private joke. If she seems vaguely out of place, it clearly suits her. “I’m in a good mood,” she announces, giving a dazzling smile. “I feel we’re lucky as actors to be able to go to different countries and meet different people.”
This is a turn-up for the books. Journalists approach Binoche on film sets with trepidation; she is not known for being upbeat. I have observed her tense and moody on two previous films, though on seeing them one understood why. Damage (1992) counts as a rare lapse by its director, the late Louis Malle. That same year, in the abject disaster Wuthering Heights, she was miscast hopelessly as Emily Bronté’s heroine Cathy opposite an uncomfortable Ralph Fiennes as Heathcliff.
This current film, an adaptation of Chocolat, based on the bestseller by Anglo-French author Joanne Harris, looks altogether more promising. Financed by Miramax, headed by that incorrigible Europhile Harvey Weinstein, it has been well received in the United States – receiving an Oscar nomination for best picture – and had a glitzy premiére in London. This year Chocolat is the Miramax film to benefit from Weinstein’s legendary, aggressive Oscar campaigning, which in previous years helped Shakespeare in Love, The English Patient, Il Postino and The Cider House Rules.
Chocolat is set in 1959 in a small, quiet, uptight French town, and is being shot partly in the West Country rather than France to qualify it as a British film, and thus save considerably – because of tax breaks – on its budget. Binoche plays Vianne Rocher, a striking looking Frenchwoman who settles there with her young daughter, and opens up a chocolate shop across the square from the church. She sells mouth-watering candies and has an uncanny knack of anticipating each customer’s precise desires, which she satisfies with exactly the right confection.
Her talent for temptation brings her in conflict with the community’s more self-righteous citizens, and the mayor (Alfred Molina) tries to run her out of town. Meanwhile Vianne allies herself with a band of travellers who live at the edge of town in poverty; one, a handsome wanderer named Roux, is played by Johnny Depp.
“This is a light piece, a happy piece,” Binoche says gaily in the warmth of her trailer. “It’s about chocolate, you know, how bad can that be?”
Clearly, then, Binoche likes this film, and with good reason; it puts her in distinguished company. There’s Depp, Molina and Dench, who plays Armande, a witch-like older woman in the town and one of Vianne’s early allies.
The formidable Swedish actress Lena Olin is Josephine, a townswoman whose unhappy life is transformed by chocolate’s healing powers. The great classical actor John Wood is Guillaume, an elderly citizen who finds rejuvenation in Vianne’s candies. And legendary veteran French screen star Leslie Caron (Gigi, An American In Paris) portrays a disapproving widow, Madame Audel.
Swedish director Lasse Hallstöm, still basking in the success of The Cider House Rules, is corralling the whole troupe. Famously one of the world’s most patient, affable directors, he is working for the first time with his wife Olin; his bonhomie makes the company cheerful enough to ignore the English weather.
Chocolat will count as a significant entry on Binoche’s CV. Four years have now elapsed since she made the transition from European art-house icon to internationally recognised film actress. In The English Patient, she was a French-Canadian nurse in World War II traumatised by grief when her lover is killed in action. The film cleaned up at the 1997 Oscars, and Binoche became the first French actress in 37 years to win an Oscar, since Simone Signoret in Room at the Top. Hollywood was at her feet; a fortune was hers for the making. So what did she do? She returned home and in what looked like bloody-mindedness made five French-language films in a row. Oh, and she took a role at Islington’s Almeida Theatre, in a production of Pirandello’s play Naked. It paid about R2 750 a week.
It has taken her this long to return to English-language film-making. Why did Binoche wait, rather than capitalise on her success in The English Patient? She sighs impatiently. “My aim is not to be an American star. Otherwise I would have moved there.”
She has long been declining Hollywood’s entreaties. She turned down Steven Spielberg’s offer to play the female lead in Jurassic Park, which went to Laura Dern; and she could have had Emmanuelle Beart’s part in Mission: Impossible. In retrospect, then, her judgement seems admirable.
Rays of sunlight dart through the clouds, and Bruton becomes temporarily transformed into a sunlit day in the garden of a French cottage. Dench, Wood and Caron are among eight characters seated at a banqueting table, and Olin scurries around pouring wine. Then Binoche emerges, carrying a huge platter of seafood, and followed by French child actress Victoire Thivisol, who plays her daughter. Binoche smiles broadly: “Bon appetit, everyone!”
The assembled company goes “aaaah!” at the sight of the food. And Hallström murmures: “Cut!” After four takes, he has his scene and the cast disperses. The mood seems relaxed.
In part, Binoche deserves the credit; lead actors as much as directors can dictate the mood of a set. Caron, who played her mother in Damage, observes that she has matured. “Her personality has opened up so much,” she says. “And I think it’s because she has children now. I admire her level-headedness. Her attitude is very good-natured. Very few young women have that attitude of always being game.”
Dench is equally complimentary: “Juliette is so easy to work with. On our very first day, we had a big scene to do. There was no awkwardness, we just got on with it and did it, and it was lovely. She has a divine sense of humour, which I like.”
And Hallström notes: “She’s a great actress, Juliette. She’s got taste. But this is a different venue for her too, I think. For once she’s playing a character that’s warm and outgoing and generous. It’s different for her.”
Nothing, it seems, can ruin Binoche’s mood on this day. She is even relaxed about fame’s attendant irritations: “It’s a question of choices. We were shooting recently in a French village, and people came along to see me. So I had lots of autographs to sign. You can decide: ‘I won’t do that, it’s stupid.’ But it’s like offering chocolate – it’s about the gesture of doing it. You have to be open to other people, because your work makes some connection with them.”
“Sometimes I wasn’t in a mood for it, but you have to deal with your emotions, admit you don’t feel like doing it and say to the person, ‘I’m sorry, this isn’t the right time.'”
Usually, then, her celebrity doesn’t become intrusive? “Oh no. I mean, it’s not as bad for me as it is for American stars. That’s a completely different world. You become a prisoner.”
And even when she’s in a good mood, the feisty Mme Binoche is no one’s idea of a prisoner.