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VIOLETTE (1978)
Directed by: Claude Chabrol.
Written by: Odile Barski, Hervé Bromberger, Jean-Marie Fritere & Frédéric Grendel.
Released by: Koch Lorber Films.
Language: French with English subtitles.
Country of Origin: France/Canada. 123 min. Not Rated.
With: Isabelle Huppert, Stéphane Audran, Jean Carmet, Jean-François Garreaud & Guy Hoffman.
DVD Features: Previews.

Isabelle Huppert stars as the title character, a homicidal teenager living the secret life of a Parisian prostitute – and the way she holds her cigarette and wears her hat aslant would have given Bette Davis a run for her money. In fact, a photo of Davis has a place of honor in Violette’s rented hotel room, but Huppert has an aloofness and haughtiness more in keeping with Marlene Dietrich. However, both influences make sense for a dreamer who longs to run away to California and falls in love at first sight with an avaricious gigolo. Not coincidentally, a shot of Huppert at the scene of a crime recalls Davis’s stone-faced close-up as Herbert Marshal lays dying in The Little Foxes.

The lurid and precise narrative recalls the recent Murderous Maids, also based on a 1930s real-life French crime shocker. In Violette’s absorbing and jumbled screenplay, every scene counts. Besides the girl’s one-sided romance with a sponger, Violette’s checkered family history enhances the already physiologically rich script. The drama won Huppert the 1978 best actress award at Cannes, and is noteworthy not only for being the actress’s first collaboration with director Claude Chabrol, but also for her teaming with Stéphane Audran – Chabrol’s former wife and frequent leading lady – as Violette’s harried and secretive mother. Remarkably, their volatile yet understated acting style hasn’t aged a bit during the last 30 years. Kent Turner
May 9, 2007