Move over Jodie Foster. In 1977 French helmer Louis Malle convinced 12-year-old Brooke Shields to star as child prostitute Violet in his American debut. Set in a fancy bordello in turn of the century New Orleans, it’s a languidly decadent drama that’s all the more troubling for keeping its pre-pubescent heroine’s point of view. Exploited by her mother (an alluring Susan Sarandon) and creepy photographer Bellocq (Keith Carradine), Violet’s slow transformation from virgin to leg-spreading hooker is disturbing – not least because this naïve Lolita’s “cherry” is auctioned off to a room of supposedly respectable senators and businessmen. Yet despite the odd barbed dig at social mores, Malle treats it all with a strange distance and pretentious import. It clearly wants to be art, not exploitation, but the unlikely sight of Antonio “Huggy Bear” Fargas as the brothel’s resident ivory tinkler doesn’t help matters much.
DVD Extras:
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