Leolo

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.

I was completely unprepared for this movie. There is an alchemy in which sadness and humor are made into something more. I was left in a very different world at the end of this movie. An absolute must see. By the way, the score is way cool, Tom Waits, Lorena Mckennit, etc.

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.

I'd heard of "Léolo" years ago, but just now got the chance to watch this masterpiece. This film is really one of a kind, bizarre, dark, amusing at moments (but should never be classified as a "comedy"), and extremely poignant. With a fantastic visual style, reminiscent of Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Fellini ("Amarcord", especially), but also a complete original, and a mind-blowing soundtrack (that includes Tom Waits and The Rolling Stones), Jean-Claude Lauzon created the two worlds of young Leo Lauzon (played by Maxime Collin; the name Lauzon is not a coincidence): his real life with his (very) dysfunctional family in Montréal, and his imaginary life as Léolo Lozone, son of a Sicilian peasant.

"Léolo" isn't, however, a cute story of a child with vivid imagination. It is definitely not for kids, and its dark extremes (attempted murder, sexual awakening, etc.) can shock even some adults. Jean-Claude Lauzon (1963-1997) died on a plane crash five years after its release, having made only two films, "Night Zoo" (1987) being the first. It's a sad loss of an extremely promising, iconoclastic artist, who managed to create a masterpiece in his second feature. There's an interesting anecdote about "Léolo" leaving the 1992 Cannes Film Festival with no awards: according to Ken Turan of Los Angeles Times, "Léolo" would've probably won the Golden Palm if Lauzon hadn't made an obscene suggestion to Jamie Lee Curtis, one of the jurors. Lauzon himself would've told Turan that he found himself next to Jamie Lee at the buffet at the Hotel du Cap, introduced himself and said: "What the boy in the film does to the piece of liver, I want to do to you". Apparently, Curtis wasn't that flattered...

With or without the Golden Palm or an Oscar for best foreign film, "Léolo" is one of the 'lost' masterpieces of the 90s that deserve to be discovered (Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel included it on their list of 100 greatest films of all time). A must see for anyone who loves unique film-making. 10/10.

Perversity. Strangeness. Absurdity. Violence. Insanity.

Just like real life, eh? While many may feel "Lèolo" is way over the top, the film doesn't contain a single incident (excepting "Leo's" conception) that couldn't have happened. Some families are simply stranger than others! And what is one man's reality is another man's nightmare...

Add to that, a soundtrack of unmitigated brilliance, Tom Waits and those basso-profundo Mongolian bison-impersonators (or something). The auditorium was shaking in its foundations!

For the cutting edge of the term "bizarre", look no further.