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Overall Rating : 6/10
Directed By : Katja von Garnier
Agnes Bruckner (Vemon)
Hugh Dancy (Black Hawk Down)
Olivier Martinez (Unfaithful)
Katja Riemann (Bandits (2007) )
Supplied By : Sony Pictures
Film Reviewed By : Rick L. Blalock
Date Reviewed : Jun. 6, 2007
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| PLOT As a young girl living in the remote mountains of Colorado, Vivian watched helplessly as her family was murdered by a pack of angry men for the secret they carried in their blood. Vivian survived the attack by running into the woods and changing into a wolf. Ten years later, Vivian is living a relatively safe and normal life in Bucharest, Romania. Vivian spends her days working in a chocolate shop and nights trawling the city’s underground clubs, fending off the reckless antics of her cousin Rafe, and his gang of delinquents he refers to as "The Five."Vivian’s life begins to unravel when she has a chance encounter with Aiden, an artist researching Bucharest’ ancient art and relics for his next graphic novel. Aiden pursues Vivian until she relents and begins to see him, but she can’t bring herself to tell him the truth - and lives in fear of showing him who she really is. Even though Vivian has sworn never to kill, she is as much an animal as she is human, and her love for Aiden threatens to cast him to the very wolves who saved her life and who are waiting for their chance to hunt him as prey. |
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| THE REVIEW In BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE a film based on the book by author Annette Curtis Klause and screen-written by Ehren Kruger(THE SKELETON KEY) and Christopher Landon, Vivian is just a young teenage girl that wants to live a normal life. But due to her heritage, a normal life seems nearly impossible, as Vivian is forced to hide certain things about herself. This is due to fact that she is of Loup-Garou decent which is a breed of half human half Werewolf spices, which also happens to be the reason her parents were hunted down and killed in America. Now orphaned, the young Vivian was brought back to her birthplace of Romania to live by Loup-Garou leader, Gabriel. Ever since arriving back in Bucharest, Vivian has been put under close watch by her cousins as well as Gabriel, and Gabriel often implies that Vivian owes him for saving her life, so much so that he expects her to marry him. Vivian planned to reluctantly agree to this demand until one day by mere chance she meets a young graphic novelist named Aiden. At first Vivian cautious of strangers to begin with, refuses to drop her guard with the charismatic author, whom by coincidence is penning and illustrating his next novel which focuses on her very own Loup-Garou heritage she conceals. Aiden smitten with Vivian without even knowing her name, manages to track her down at the Chocolate shop in which she works. The two would get closer and share each others' company and as time would pass Vivian begins to fall for Aiden, but it seems to closer she becomes to being in love with him, the harder it becomes to hide who she is. All would soon be revealed when Gabriel and company find out about the love affair, and they aren't too happy about it. The brood on many occasions try to forbid the relationship by demand and by action, but in the end Vivian must choose between her blood(ancestry and family) or her chocolate(her first and true love and humanity). Before even seeing BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE, I knew it had been a book first, and how could I not seeing as just how many complaints there were that a movie like this was going to disgrace the story? And sure enough, after the movie was released many(and I mean many), have voiced their opinions on just how awful it is and how different it is from the book. Well, I myself aren't necessarily a reader, so I have not read the book, so I can only speak for the movie, and to be completely honest with you, I thought it was fantastic! As I understand, the characters in the book lived in America, but here Katja von Garnier, chooses to shoot the film in Europe.(probably due to some budget restraints) I feel that Bucharest Romania was the ideal location to shoot this mythological love story. The plot is essentially a love story in the vein of ROMEO AND JULIET retold, with of course a few elements added in for originality. Vivian has held the secret of being part werewolf all of her life and belongs to a heritage called "Loup-Garou". She meets a guy whom she really likes but can be free with him due to that secret, and to make matters worse that guy is more or less an expert on her kind. So imagine if you finally begin to muster up the courage to reveal your self and your evil relatives invade and to it for you.....that's exactly what happens to Vivian. One of the complaints i've read that people have for this film among the seemingly endless list is that the story is too "simple" and not "deep" enough. And once again I find myself disagreeing with the majority, I found that BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE had many points, elements and messages, some being, defiance, loyalty, trust, love and even growing up. How is that simple, when so much meaning can be found in one "forbidden love" story? The story is captured by slick and very fluent directing by von Garnier, utilizing both natural and imposed lighting to add specific lighting to particular scenes, while using the atmosphere and location to bring out other scenes It's safe to say that the locations themselves were characters of their own. The cast is very diverse in having very many different nationalities featured. But with that said I think everyone fared very well in my opinion. Oliver Martinez whom has been seen as the foreign lover in films such as UNFAITHFUL is not a lover her, but instead he is an evil menace. I feel he does a fairly good job of creating the evil presence needed to make the character of Gabriel believable. But the focus of the film is mostly on Agnes Bruckner as Vivian and of course Hugh Dancy as Aiden. The chemistry between the two was great, and most importantly believable, had it not been, the outcome of the movie wouldn't have been the same for me. I had really not had the chance to really see Hugh Dancy perform before, because I had not seen any of his previous films, but I have to say that he came off as a very likeable guy here. With Agnes Bruckner my story couldn't be more different, i'm a big supporter of her work and have seen almost everything she's done, she's also a person with a very laid back and cool personality- But all of this is besides the point. Here she delivers probably one of my favorite roles she has done, the character is very likeable and very relatable, and by the film's end you are likely to fall in love with Vivian just as Aiden has. Sure, fans of the novel are likely to have some dislike for the film version due to the many differences, making them two different stories(the book goes as far as having Aiden not accepting Vivian as a wolf and then trying to kill her). But judging the film on it's own, with no book in sight, BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE turns out to be an excellent film. In the end it's a solid love story with the foreshadow of a young girl's battle between what she knows and what she's familiar with(being of a unique breed), and what she wants(regular humanity and love). | ||||
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| GORE
METER 2/10 For a film with the word "blood" in the title, you'd expect more blood, but being PG-13 it's not at all gory. there are a few bloody wounds, but most of the time they are only shown in quick flashes. |
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| MUSICAL
SCORE 5.5/10 I really liked the score. It was really upbeat, with many techno trance beats, that to me kept the pace moving along fairly nicely... I just felt that the score really fit the premise of the film. |
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| OVERALL
IMPRESSION OF THE FILM I really liked this film, and even though there was a lot of negative buzz surrounding the film, I honestly knew I would. I usually have a different opinion when it comes to the majority, for instance a lot of people hated VENOM, and also some hated THE HITCHER remake, but I in turn loved them, and the same applies here, this is an excellent film. I usually like films that have a meaning and heart and in my opinion, this film had plenty. I recommend! This DVD will be released on June 12, 2007 |
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