Raetsonwe
Redundant and unnecessary.
ChanFamous
I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.
Rio Hayward
All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
rickdumesnil
young 12 year old boy masturbates in a piece of raw meat.....young nude girl bites an old mans toenails....young boys use a cat for sex.....mother falls in a tomato truck and gets pregnant by tomato....dad and mom watch son evacuate his bowels and clap when he does it. IS THAT ENUFF FOR YOU. and some say i didn't understand the film and it is a masterpiece. sorry but this movie is rotten to the core. and im french..and i don't betray my people because the movie C.R.A.Z.Y was a million times better. leolo is an absolute disaster. 1 point for cinematography though...and thats it. THOSE who loved it well.......good for you but you ain't no friend of mine
rooprect
Movies like this make me want to punch Roger Ebert. I think it was Ebert who praised this. Maybe it was the other one. Hell, I'll punch em both.Don't let the pseudo intellectual reviews fool you. This is "American Pie 2" masquerading as an art house film. Potty humour. A man masturbates on a load of tomatoes. A boy urinates off a balcony. A fat woman takes a dump (while the camera moves slowly in between her legs). A boy tries to take a dump but fails. A boy takes a dump (with sound effects).This is all in the first 20 minutes. I shut the movie off, saving myself the torment of watching what someone told me was in the 2nd half: more masturbation, sex with animals, more people taking dumps, sex with 12-year-old-boys, and probably a few farts for good measure.American Pie 2.I'm sorry to say that this is the first Canadian movie I've seen that royally bit the big one. It'll take me a while to recover from this atrocity. Save yourself the upchucked lunch and watch a good, wholesome Kurosawa movie instead.P.S. If you're a fan of Peter Greenaway, you'll love this movie. Seriously.
bandw
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.
lifeinfilm-1
'I loved Fernand for his ignorance...because I dream I am not' I watched Leolo again on IFC few nights ago (after what is now more then ten years when I first saw it in a theater) and realized that this film was one of the catalysts for my entrance into the world of cinema. To be part of the film industry is very much, I believe, to dream big. The moment I stop dreaming I would seize to exist. Like Leolo said 'because I don't dream, I am not'. An essential tool for dreaming may be the hardship in having to deal with misunderstood reality. Or possibly being misunderstood all together. Psychological torment and trying to make sense out of situations we find ourselves in, status quo, or sympathy for the world which regardless of our actions keeps going it's own path leaves an artist in constant turmoil. I feel i have so much in common with Leolo that I fear of my own 'death' as a dreamer. Still, just seeing 'Leolo' gives comfort and lesson that once you stop dreaming...life of an artist seizes to exist. Thank you for once again showing me the path.
