Pretty Baby

Shocking in its day, perhaps--its day being 1978--but Louis Malle's idyllic, almost documentary-style depiction of a child prostitute can't hope to be as provocative today. One need only look at prepubescent Britney Spears fans to find young girls who are far more overtly sexualized than 12-year-old Brooke Shields is here, even if the current crop appear to be just as naive as Shields' coquettish Violet. Disturbing but never exploitive, Violet's coming of age in a 1917 New Orleans bordello is plodding and almost plotless, but the strikingly lovely cinematography--the transfer to DVD on this extra-less disc is soft but clean--lends the film an air of reverie that belies the genteel harshness of Violet's world, in which her virginity is auctioned off to the highest bidder, her mother (a languid Susan Sarandon) abandons her, and a much-older photographer (Keith Carradine) falls in love with her (through it all she's still childish enough to play with dolls). Malle plays it straightforward and unsentimental, and the matter-of-fact attitude makes it all the more tragic. Recommended. (M. Johanson)