Léolo

Léolo is a unique comedy; replete with elements of tragedy and the grotesque, and filmed with a sense of energy and discovery. There's a gleeful feeling at work here. A taste for invention and the unexpected; a need to show images that haven't been conceived before.

But there is also something else. A resentment. A well of melancholy. A desperation. The humor is always slant. It's funny, but its approach is peculiar. You're clearly supposed to laugh, but what's that beneath the joke? Is that supposed to be funny as well? Or is it supposed to be painful? Or both?

Director Jean-Claude Lauzon doesn't answer these questions for us. His film balances all sorts of tones and feelings, and our emotions vary wildly from scene to scene - or even within a scene - and yet he never gives us concrete footing on which to base our opinion of his work. No. He would rather make us fly. And he achieves this.

The early scenes set the mood; young Léolo grows up while the narrator's voice reads from Léolo's journal. Ostensibly, the narrator is Léolo, but it might also be the old man who finds the boy's discarded journal pages, or perhaps even the director himself. It's never made clear.

At any rate, our protagonist has to contend with all sorts of odd-ball problems. From a grandpa who tries to drown him, to a mother who demands he take daily shits under her supervision (and encouragement). The rest of his family is just as strange. Most of them are, in fact, clinically insane. Léolo enlists the help of one of his sisters, whom he refers to as a sort of Queen. She takes shits for him, and then he dumps those shits into the toilet, in the hopes of convincing his father that they're his shits. Daily ejection of excrement is an important matter in Léolo's household.

Then there's his brother. He gets picked on by some cocky fellow, and so he spends the rest of the movie working out and building his muscles. Later on in the film, he meets with the cocky fellow again, but all of his newfound muscles are for naught. He still gets beat up. Léolo tries to console him, but it's of no use. It's a powerful moment because of how quietly true it is. Fear is internal. Whatever external changes you exert upon yourself are irrelevant, if inside you're still the same person, with the same anxieties and worries.

When not dealing with his family, Léolo fantasizes about his neighbor - a pretty older girl named Bianca - and the land of Italy. He finds both woman and country linked in his imagination, and his musings are so elaborate, that he begins to believe that he's Italian himself. According to his theory, an Italian man, nine months prior to his birth, masturbated on a batch of tomatoes, which were promptly shipped across the Atlantic Ocean, and placed on display on a market, where his mother fell on top of the batch, and accidentally had one of the contaminated tomatoes stuck up her cunt.

Seem indecent? Consider what happens to Bianca. She gets involved with Léolo's grandfather, providing favors for the man, undressing herself for his viewing pleasure, and agreeing to cut his nails with her teeth. Léolo is witness to this, and he is confused as to whether he should revel in the girl's nudity, or become disgusted at his grandfather's lecherousness. Ultimately, he settles on both; he wanks it at the sight of the girl, and then tries to murder his grandfather.

All of this probably sounds horrible. And yet it isn't. Roger Ebert, writing his review of the film for inclusion into his Great Movies archive, wrote, after describing parts of the plot, as I have above, "If the movie sounds depraved and depressing to you, it is because I have failed to convey the deep amusement and even love that Lauzon conveys in his material."

I think he got at something there; this is not a movie you can successfully describe. On paper, it sounds absolutely disgusting. I mean, how can attempted murder be funny? Or pedophilia? Or insanity? But it is funny. And, not just that, but it's also humane. You care for these unlikely characters. You understand that they're not that weird or crazy; they're just human beings, trying to deal with problems - internal and external - and mostly failing. That is to say, they're like every one of us.

Léolo has his own challenges to affront. To maintain his sanity, he must dream. But what happens when your dreams start falling to disillusion? When your imaginary romance with the girl next door starts to appear more distant? When the brother you admired for his supposed strength, is suddenly revealed to be about as weak as a dove?

When you dream of open spaces, wind-swept hills, and sunny Mediterranean towns - and all you get in return are claustrophobic indoor spaces and the glares of intimidating teenagers. What happens?

The film, ultimately, seems to be an ode to the rejuvenating and inspiring power of fiction. To dream is to perchance escape otherwise unendurable realities. But perhaps fiction is not enough; you also need an environment receptive to your fancies. An environment which encourages imagination, rather than attempts to stifle it.

There's a character here that could have provided Léolo with said environment. It's the old man, who reads Léolo's journal by candlelight. Had he had more contact with the protagonist, perhaps something great could have happened. But it wasn't to be. They get together, but not too much. The old man most likely did not know who desperately Léolo needed somebody like him.

But what can you do? You can't ever know how important you could have been to a person.