The Doc ‘Semisweet’ is Beautiful, Bittersweet — and Choco-Locate is the App for That

Nia and Awa who escaped from Côte d’Ivoire

I was attend­ing the recent launch for the doc­u­men­tary Semi­sweet at the Royal Cin­ema in Toronto’s Lit­tle Italy.

I had already watched the film twice at home and was telling its pro­ducer Lalita Krishna before the screen­ing how its poignant end­ing had made me cry. “That’s the sign of a good film,” she replied softly. And I agree.

It hap­pened to me some years ago as the lovely movie Big Night fin­ished with a touch­ing scene between the two restau­ra­teur broth­ers. Like­wise for my expe­ri­ence at the movies last week when, near its end, the mag­nif­i­cent Cana­dian film Mon­sieur Lazhar about a Mon­treal school­teacher and his young stu­dents took an unex­pect­edly tear-jerking turn.

In the spirit of keep­ing the last scene of Semi­sweet a secret — and secrets are not my forte — let’s just say that it is bit­ter­sweet and beau­ti­ful beyond belief. So is the entire film which, like any great work of cin­ema, trans­ports us by means of stun­ning cin­e­matog­ra­phy, evoca­tive music and, most impor­tant, a care­fully crafted tale.

Moments of humour, pecu­liar­ity, sur­prise, sad­ness, pain and human warmth pep­per this real story of how choco­late is made. In par­tic­u­lar, it shows the bru­tal­ity of child labour on the cocoa plan­ta­tions of Côte d’Ivoire.

Here, chil­dren are lured with promises of money from their homes in the poor neigh­bour­ing coun­tries of Mali and Burk­ina Faso.

Bril­liant direc­tor Michael All­cock, who spoke with elo­quence and humil­ity at the launch, did an amaz­ing job of weav­ing together four dis­parate ele­ments to tell what is a sadly under-publicized dark story.

I’ve heard the moniker “earth muffins” used to describe raw food­ists Rob and Nadine, a nutty New Age cou­ple liv­ing in rural splen­dour on the out­skirts of Algo­nquin Park and mak­ing their ultra-pure brand of organic choco­late called Liv­ing Liba­tions. The heal­ing prop­er­ties of their choco­late, which they pro­mote on quirky YouTube videos, have attracted celebs like Woody Har­rel­son, Sting and Ala­nis Morisette.

They share the screen with the bizarre, Disney-like town of Her­shey, the Penn­syl­va­nia burg ped­dled as “The Sweet­est Place on Earth.” A strange young man called Jonathan who lives there is shown work­ing at the Her­shey Hotel and wax­ing elo­quent about Willy Wonka and the Choco­late Fac­tory. A female pub­li­cist with a pasted-on grin gives new mean­ing to the word “mouthpiece.”

Then there’s tal­ented Parisian pas­try chef Patrick Roger who loves fast cars and all things choco­late. He makes giant sculp­tures out of it and espouses ecol­ogy and the fair trade stuff.

Last, inter­wo­ven with the three afore­men­tioned themes, are sev­eral young Africans. We see Noufou and Mamoutou toil­ing amid pes­ti­cides and dan­ger­ous tools in the Côte d’Ivoire cocoa fields. Mean­while, two beau­ti­ful girls Nia and Awa tell how they escaped upon arrival in that coun­try after being saved by some adults from what is, for many chil­dren, a deadly fate.

The kooky Cana­dian cou­ple, the sur­real scenes at Her­shey head­quar­ters and the artistry of a top French choco­latier serve to high­light the film’s mes­sage: Choco­late may be a divine con­fec­tion but how it is made is another story.

And have a hand­ker­chief ready for that bit­ter­sweet finale.

By the way, I was more pre­pared than some for the above poignant moment hav­ing read the ter­rific 2006 book by CBC radio’s Carol Off: “Bit­ter Choco­late: Inves­ti­gat­ing the Dark Side of the World’s Most Seduc­tive Sweet.” Rec­om­mended read­ing on this topic.

Semi­sweet will be aired on TVO on Wednes­day June 6 at 9 pm and 12 am. Also on Thurs­day June 7 at 7 pm and 9 pm; Sun­day June 10 at 11 pm.

And there’s the Choco-locate app, the first iPhone app and mobile web­site devoted to choco­late. Here, choco­late fans can find sources and share their find­ings through a store direc­tory, recipe chal­lenges, mee­tups and tastings.

Musi­cians in Côte d’Ivoire