Product Description

Story of a young boy growing up in a dysfunctional family as he struggles to come of age within the confines of an East Montreal tenement.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #39605 in VHS
• Released on: 1998-09-01
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Formats: Color, Dolby, NTSC
• Original language: French
• Number of tapes: 1
• Running time: 107 minutes

From The New Yorker
Weird but none too wonderful. Jean-Claude Lauzon's film is set partly in Montreal and partly inside the bustling imagination of its hero. Léolo (Maxime Collin) is a young boy who thinks, quite mistakenly, that he's Italian-a fairly mild delusion by the standard of his family, most of whom are crazy about bowel movements and heading straight for the asylum. You see Grandfather having his toenails clipped by the teeth of a young girl, and Léolo himself attending the ritual rape of a cat, but you don't even bother to be repelled; this is Believe It Or Not cinema, and the answer is mostly Not. Lauzon's reckless fancy doesn't have anything to brace against, to spring off from: he tires you out by trying to shock you too hard. Worst of all, he lathers the images with extra voice-over, just in case you don't get what's going on. That smacks of cowardice; as Bu–uel showed long ago, the first duty of a good surrealist is to have the courage of his own concoctions. In French. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

More Bitter than Sweet, an Honest Comming of Age Film
Leo, a precocious child growing up in abject poverty, concocts an alternative identity as an Italian boy (Leolo) conceived through an encounter between his mother and a tomato, freshly doused with the onanistic spritz of an immigrant grocer. Surrounded by a (sur)real family-- a father obsessed with defecation, a sister who reigns as queen of the insects in the crawl-space below the family's tenament apartment, a bullied brother hiding from his environment in a steroid-enhanced body-- Leo(lo) excapes into the fiction of his alternative life, aided by a kind stranger who deposits books at his door-step. At night Leo reads these fantastic stories by stolen-light, and later they seep into his dreams, where he is enthralled and inspired by the beauty of an older neighbor-girl he fancies his muse and future lover. "Because I dream, I am..." Leolo reiterates throughout this bitter-sweet tale of a bright mind besieged by the inequities of life. While punctuated with hilarious episodes of mock-heroism, and scored by a delightful Tom Waits soundtrack, the film subtly reveals the brutalities that imperil Leo's comming of age. While we hope, with the protagonist, that art can triumph over the hardships of life, the film refuses the sadder-but-wiser narratives of redemption that usually underpin this genre. The innoscence and wisdom of a child's perspective is relayed in all of its precariousness. If you liked "My Life as a Dog," "400 Blows," or "Slingshot," this film will blow you away! More bitter than sweet, "Leolo" is a comming of age story that dares to question the faith we put in the creative individual to convert our collective social failures into the necessary conditions of art. In doing so, it eloquently evokes the beauty and the danger born of an impulse to fight with no recourse but mental flight. "Leolo" employs the conventions of magic realism while staying firmly within a recognizable universe. And while it crafts its characters with humor it neither patronizes nor lampoons them. The film's true brilliance is its ability to convey the devastating limitations imposed upon its young hero by an unfortunate and uncomprehending family, while all along betraying their plight as similarly epic and heart-wrenching. "Leolo" will haunt you long after you turn off the VCR.

A sensitive, beautiful, and extremely poetic film.
Leolo

This is a dark comedy that has much in common with the wonderful French film by Patrice LeConte entitled The Hairdresser's Husband. Certainly the two films are in the same genre. The film is a backwards and forwards look at the life of a gifted young lad named Leo, unlucky enough to be born a Silk Purse in a family of Sow's Ears, to complete the metaphor. Leo has the soul of a poet, and we hear his exquisite thoughts weaving the film together. The voice-overs are in French, of course, which makes them even more beautiful.

Leo is a dreamer, and his story is about the importance of dreams, and of love. The film is full of premonitions and gives many clues about events to come. It's a journey into the agonies and longings and ordeals of coming-of-age, but it's also much more. It's at times zany, playful, tragic, poetic, pensive, and thoughtful. It's filled with contrasts: innocence and depravity, sweetness and brutality, melancholy and etheriality, images of beauty and squalor, picturesque, warm vistas of Sicily and the cold starkness of tenements in Canada, a loving family cavorting on a Sunday outing and the craziness existing within that same family, just to name a few. The wonderful sensitivity and beautiful poetic quality of this film are exquisite to savor. It is a film that takes its time to tell its story, and finding that wonderful quality in a film is a true delight. So many films made in this country and in the world are compacted into staccato images that hit one's psyche like a machine gun. This one lingers on the images it presents, and imparts its message in its own time, on its own terms, and in its own unique way.

This is a film that needs to be seen more than once. It's complex and deep and wide-ranging and ambitious in scope. It's full of many-sided emotions and it's about more than just what happens in the plot. Purchase it, and savor it, and contemplate the wonderfully told story of a truly amazing life. Highly, highly recommended!!

Touched by Genius this is a Beautiful film **10 Stars***
Jean-Claude Lauzon was, no doubt, a troubled genius. I have seen Leolo many times and also the documentary about its director titled Lauzon Lauzon.
Leolo is a work of art. Lauzon attacked this project like a composer attacks a symphony. Its said that he played tapes of the musical scores for the producer, while standing over his shoulder and demanding that he read the script immediately.

Lauzon used music like a knife to make his points in some scenes. We hear the sacred tones of classical hymn while we see the gritty sometimes profane reality that Leolo lives in. There is Catholic symbolism and guilt oozing out of this film. The voice who speaks to us off an on throughout the film is excellent; through the voice of the archivist, of Leolo's
papers and deepest thoughts, we are allowed access to his psyche. The voice is also in English on the DVD.

Maxime Collin is an incredible young actor. He plays Leo who refuses to be a french Canadian boy from the poorest part of Montreal and instead he is Leolo a white shirted Italian boy who lives for romance and beauty (oh yes and the Italian Countryside is beautiful). Our main charter repeats over and over, "I think therefore I am not". There is a lot here that Leolo would "not" want to be. Crazy for starters as his family home is a bit of an asylum.

If you're squeamish, steer away, there are gritty scenes here. Yes a cat gets defiled (among other things), but for the prudish reviewer who claimed he smashed his tape at this point, I really doubt that the cat was hurt. Kinda of like the horses didn't really die in Brave Heart, my friend! Look beyond the cat to the social statement that is being made about the boy who is involved. Remember his mother worries that he is smoking, but has no idea what she ought to be worrying
about. I won't say anymore, spoilers annoy me almost as much as Philistines who watch art film and then get all self-righteous about the gritty bits. (Hint, rent Disney instead, my friend)

This is an art film there is no other way to describe it. It is a comedy but it's a dark art comedy so don't buy it for a laugh out loud evening, there are some really heavy and troubling elements here that will leave you thinking afterwards.

The movie is beautifully filmed and well worth purchasing. I note that the DVD is only available through Amazon.ca, at the US site they are only selling the VHS. Buy the DVD, invite over a good friend, open some wine and enjoy the film and the long conversation that will follow it.