DocTalk: The Dark Side of Chocolate

For chocolate-lovers, it is not easy to give up on something that makes you feel like flying to the heavens above after taking a bite of that savory bar of chocolaty goodness.

But alas, there is an unsavory side to this sweet pleasure. A film has been created that might make you think twice before reaching for that sweet indulgence.The Dark Side of Chocolate, a documentary by Miki Mistrati and U. Roberto Romano, sheds light on the use of child labor and illegal trafficking of children in Ivory Coast’s cocoa industry. The country is the largest producer of cocoa, owning 40% of the world’s production.

In the film, Mistrati and Romano go undercover in Mali to take the audience on the kids’ journey to the cocoa plantations. With the promise of paid work, Malian children are taken into towns near the border, where traffickers transport them over the border on dirt-bikes, and are later sold to plantation farmers. In the plantations, kids are exposed to unsafe labor, receive no compensation, and are physically abused if they don’t work hard enough. But this is all just the tip of the iceberg.

The footage is gritty and unstable, not only because of the usage of hidden cameras that resulted in shaky imagery, but due to the nature of the gritty nature of the film itself. When discussing a heavy topic such as child slavery, the tone of discussion needs tolack a happy and bright tone, Mistrati and Romano certainly accomplished that. 

In a film such as The Dark Side of Chocolate, the main concern wasn’t getting beautiful shots, but rather advocating for the children and portraying an in-depth argument.      

What the film lacks in composition, it makes up for in its takeaway message: one’s source of joy may be produced with others’ source of misery. 

Karina Hernandez

Picture Sources: www.documentary tube.com, interrete.org