On a gloomy afternoon, I chose Pretty Baby, whose poster also looked gloomy. The film had been in the drawer for a long time, and I gradually forgot why I bought it at that time. Perhaps because of the nostalgic texture of the coarse-grained texture produced in 1978 on the cover of the poster, and the picture of a very beautiful girl holding a doll and looking into the distance with very mature eyes, which is indescribably attractive. Such a girl can be deterred at a glance.
Looking at the story, I was also intimidated. This story with the "broodhouse" as the background has no negative image in the traditional depiction at all, but it is always fun and interesting. In this middle-class southern villa, a group of young and beautiful prostitutes who play on the scene, but seem to be really in love, surrounds the non-stop jazz, wine, and three o'clock in the afternoon. The gentleman's game of cards. A girl named Violet shuttled among them. She never went to school or walked out of this world. Her mother was a prostitute, and her mother's mother was also a prostitute. Her face was always full of beauty and childishness that could not be hidden. , pride and willfulness. She was 12 years old, and she was very charming. She leaned into a man's lap and said a provocative sentence. For her, it was a normal life skill. Joy is the only law here, and worldly standards of moral conscience have never had a chance in Violet's heart. Violet was unexpectedly happy in what was supposed to be an "ugly, sinful hell". And with the arrival of a photographer, Belloc, her love was born.
It’s a utopia the director imagines, a nostalgia for the northward shift of American jazz, the birth of early photography, and an indefinable love. In this kind of love, the age of the object, no matter how old or young, will be reduced and regressed, and there will be a childlike carelessness, a little selfish possessiveness, and a fluttering sentimentality after the loss. Belloc himself is a person with a childish temperament. For example, every time Violet flips his camera equipment out of curiosity, he will lose his temper like a little boy who has been robbed of a toy. As he fell in love with this girl who exuded a hint of mature woman flavor, Belloc's childish temperament gradually replaced the vision of secular morality, and completely regarded the little violet as his own. An artistic lover, watching her cheerfully bathing in the bathtub, is not guilt, but sweet artistic inspiration. The 12-year-old Violet was lying naked on the sofa and asked Bellock to take a picture. Such a scene, without the slightest lust and debauchery, Violet yawned because of posing for a long time, and Bellock screamed at her like a child; Violet Because he was ignored by Bellock and dropped his film, Bellock was angry because he ignored her. Both of their souls contained an adult and a child at the same time.
This state of "mature innocence" allows precocious children and late mature adults to stand in the same paradise and live a carefree life. The story develops to the most joyous period when Belloc proposes to Little Violet in the street, so a 12-year-old girl and an adult man stand side by side in the church and swear an oath before God as if they were playing at home. The most unbearable thing was that the priest wanted to register the name of Little Violet's mother. She replied, "Father, she is not here." When I asked her again, she answered loudly: She is a prostitute. Laughing all over the place.
The uninhibitedness of childhood is so free and easy, for children, everything in the world does not have to be overly concerned. Care, care is only about adults, they will not understand why adults are willing to indulge in things that no longer exist.
Therefore, children never have to be responsible for anything, and the word cherishing is too heavy and cumbersome for childhood to be unnecessary. There are many kinds of happiness. Happiness is simple in childhood and complicated in adulthood. The happiness at that time is restrained by many factors, just like Violet fell in love with Belloc, it is a simple love, no one will let it. She took responsibility for this relationship. She pestered him and hugged his legs. In people's eyes, she was just an urchin. She could marry him, but no one would take it seriously, but Belloc loving him and touching her became immoral, absolutely wrong, and had to end. On a quiet morning, Violet and Belloc had breakfast together, and the Terminator appeared. She was wearing gorgeous clothes and was in a private car. She was the mother who left Violet and ran to marry a rich man. She came back at this time. Now, to take back the violet that originally belonged to her. Belloc didn't struggle too much. The film took a few minutes to express the process. This kind of paradise does not exist regardless of age. After the director has performed a dream comedy, the curtain is drawn with reality.
But the "mature innocence" temperament continues. Belloc and Violet in the last shot of the film are silent and expressionless. Looking to the side of the camera, people can't analyze more from their expressions. It's just that they can vaguely feel that they seem to be making some kind of small plan in their hearts. That is probably because they are reminiscing about the good past like a gust of wind, recognizing the loss in their hands at the moment, and their urgent expectations for the future in the next moment. A mix of emotions, happy, sad, frustrating, and exciting. The mature innocence makes them far away from the pain caused by the joys and sorrows of the world.
It was not until I saw the subtitles after the film that I realized that the person who played Little Violet was 12-year-old Brooke Shields! The woman who was later dubbed "Sexy Kitten" and once held the status of a goddess in the late 1980s turned out to be a genius at the age of 12. Of course, for this stubborn, precocious, and stunning character, Brooke Shields in her childhood is more of a true performance. Compared with the movies she starred in as an adult, she has been set by the times, except for being beautiful and sexy. , full of femininity, can no longer see the kind of deep and powerful temperament that exudes in childhood. After experiencing the scandal with Michael Jackson, the hype of "The Last Virgin in Hollywood", the glamorous global jeans advertisement for CK, the lightning-like marriage and divorce with Agassi, and postpartum depression, Brooke Shields is inevitable. Completed all the entanglements that a star should appear in, and then gradually forgotten. She, just an aftertaste, did not become a classic after all. Now, as a mother, Brooke Xiaosi is more of a gentle and loving mother in the media, but that is happiness after all, but that kind of happiness is also one of the "happiness and happiness of adults". This kind of grief and frustration are as huge as the bottom of the iceberg. It is no longer like the kind of happiness and joy in the film she starred in more than 20 years ago. In the era of mature and childlike innocence, happiness and joy are just happiness and joy, and there is no misfortune in the world. connection.
Mature innocence, rare and fleeting, but it did exist once. Maybe sometimes, when we are making a slingshot and bamboo dragonfly for the children, we catch the faint traces, it feels so sweet and familiar.
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