Léolo

Echoes of the magnificent THE TIN DRUM reverberate through the stunning, lyrical French-Canadian LEOLO.

The late Jean-Claud Lauzon's masterwork filters a dysfunctional family through the eyes of a dreamer who imagines himself to be Italian.

The film is filled with gorgeous cinematic studies of childhood cruelty, sexual abuse, eccentricity, first love, first self-love, insanity, obsession, unusual uses for meat products, and familial bonds.

As Leolo, Maxime Collin is without peer, delivering a truly amazing performance as a young boy on a difficult journey of discovery and exploration.

A wonderful Tom Waits cue anchors the soundtrack and eccentric supporting performances bring vivid color to the drama.

The film is photographed and directed with such amazing precision and passion that you can not help but be propelled by it.

In every sense an original, emotional work, and one of the best films ever made.

An obscure modern classic.

Léo Lauzon is a young boy living in a Montreal slum with his weird family. He doesn't get along with his grandfather. His older brother Fernand starts pumping up after getting picked on by a bully. His sister Rita is mentally disturbed. He writes in his book and has an imaginary world. He doesn't see any similarity between himself and his rotund silent hard-working father. He imagines he comes from another father who masturbated into a crate of tomatoes in Sicily. His mother gets impregnated after getting knocked into the pile of tomatoes.

This is one weird movie. It has a lot of odd sexual allusions. The memorable scenes are utterly unique. I don't really like narrators in general. I wish the movie would have more of a structure to the story. His coming-of-age story meanders too much. Nevertheless, this is a good and completely different kind of movie.

This is one of the few movies that left me mystified. Was it trying to create only mood (however unpleasant), was it trying to convey a deep message (however obscure), was it trying to show that there is squalor in modern Montreal (however unsurprising)? All of these? None of these? Why was this movie made?

A boy is coming of age in a totally dysfunctional family. The parents are obsessed with bodily functions - the father checks the boy's output after each visit to the toilet; all five children are forced to take laxatives. If you see dark humor in this, then you may like this movie. I'm afraid the humor flew over my head.

We see rats in the sink, rats in the bathtub. In one scene, that I assume is to have some special meaning, we see at some length a filthy turkey in the bathtub. What's the meaning of that? And what an inspiring thing it is to see a young boy having sex with a cat.

I felt like taking a shower after watching this movie.

The boy, Léolo, finds his family so difficult to deal with that he escapes into dreams, fantasy, and writing. Maybe understandably, most everyone in this family winds up going nuts or heading toward death.

The music is a grab bag. There is a mixture of things like Tom Waits' "Cold Cold Ground," Tallis' "Spem in Allum," the Stones' "You can't always get what you want," and chanting.

Much of the movie is told in a voice-over and sections of the novel "L'avalée des avallés" by the Canadian Réjean DuCharme are read - this is a book that Léolo is reading and it is the only book in his house. A recurring quote is, "Because I dream, I'm not." I think the idea behind that is that we dream to escape reality, but your guess is as good as mine.

I have to give this movie credit for coming out of nowhere to give us something like we have never seen before, but that doesn't mean that we will like it. Sometimes there is a fine balance between art and pretension and, for me, this movie weighs in on the pretension side.

An honest portrayal of childhood from a young Montreal boy's perspective. Some truly great scenes. Redefines the meaning of a dysfunctional family and avoids the usual scenarios of telling the story of growing up in poverty. Highly recommended.

To me, 'Léolo' is like a rare gemstone. A unique, surreal fairytale, which you can look at from many different angles and yet it remains hard to describe. Although there clearly is a structured narrative, I believe this film is more to be felt than understood. While it's often tragic and disturbing, it's also very funny and darkly comic. Somehow fitting for a story inspired by childhood memories, reality and fantasy are seamlessly interwoven to create an often dream-like, sometimes nightmarish atmosphere.

This was only director Jean-Claude Lauzon's second film, and sadly he never got to make more than two; he died in a plane crash while he was preparing his third film.

A beautiful, unforgettable work of art, albeit not one for the easily offended.

My vote: 10 out of 10

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