It Case

The book is about a high school fundraising candy sale in a Catholic, boys

high school in the Massacusetts. Robert Cormier, the author, pulls no

punches about how cruel and deceitful adolescents can be. Moreover,

the many of the teachers in the school are portrayed as manipulative and

power-tripping. My recollection is that there are few violent scenes, but

that they are very descriptive and powerfully written.

Cormier is an interesting author. He often sets his books in high schools

and his protagonists are usually in the teen range, but his handling of the

material and strong prose style makes him very much an adult author. Many

of his stories come around to the point of view that we adults don't treat

teens very well, and the world as a whole is not a very nice place. There

is a strong back list, much of it still in print in paperback, I suppose.

However, The Chocolate war is not a simple film about fighting the powers that be. The protagonist actually has little to say about his own action: he's so opaque that it seems even He doesn't know exactly what he is rebelling against, just that he can't give up. He doesn't really know what he's doing, and as his life is made more and more awful by Archie and Brother Leon, it becomes increasingly clear he doesn't enjoy it either. He simply feels compelled to, and stoically refuses to give in, despite the obvious pointlessness of his rebellion and the cruel consequences that ensue. But this makes for a very hard hero to identify with and rootfor.

In fact, most of the film revolves around Archie and his attempt to break Renault's will. Archie is very talkative, and in fact the camera seems oddly attracted to his mercilessness, elegance and charisma, even as we assume we're supposed to revile him. Even creepy John Glover plays his villain very straight, giving only a vague, intangible sense of menace. By creating a hero we can't understand and villains we gravitate towards, the film subtly creates a situation where we can't really take sides, and can only observe the pathetic hopelessness of both situations. After all, this is all about selling chocolates. This throws the entire proceedings into an almost absurdist light. Light touches of humor reinforce this classification and keep the proceedings from ever becoming bogged down in their gloominess.

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