| | | Growing Up Can Be Painfully Funny.
Features: DVD, Dolby, Digital Audio, Hi-fi Stereo, Aspect Ratio 1.85:1, Widescreen, French, English, Subtitled
Welcome to the world of Leolo Lozone, a 12-year-old dreamer with a hilarious life-preserving ability to recreate the world according to his imagination. Whether dealing with his scatterbrained brother or plotting the murder of his grandfather, Leolo is an incorrigible misfit touched with a lovable streak of madness. From a wild romance with his sexy next door neighbor to incredible visits to the bottom of the sea, Leolo takes refuge in a fantasy world of poems and reams where he can triumph over even the strangest of tragedies. Bizarre, belligerent and totally outrageous!
"Brilliantly comic, a film of surpassing beauty and strength." Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
"Strikingly original...funny, fearless, genuinely poetic. A real crowd pleaser." Janet Maslin, New York Times
Editor's Note
Lauzon's somewhat autobiographical story of a young boy who seeks refuge from his boring life in a vivid dreamworld.
Plot Summary
A dreamlike, hypnotic film, in which fantasy and reality inextricably merge, examines an unhappy child's desperate efforts to create an alternative, pleasurable world through his imagination and creativity.| A young boy, stuck in an unbelievably neurotic and dysfunctional family, fills notebooks with his fantasies to escape the harsh reality of his life. In the key fantasy, Léolo (his made-up name) imagines he is the offspring of an Italian peasant and a particularly "fertile" tomato brought to Canada in a grocery shipment. These writings provide Leolo with a safe haven where he can forget his painful existence, but this ends when his notebooks are discovered by a local academic who unsuccessfully tries to convince his family and teachers of Leolo's talents. Leolo retreats from writing, and gradually loses himself in a world of his own imaginings. He is hospitalized, but steadfastly impervious to the proddings of the mental health professionals, he sinks further into his imagination, creating for himself a slightly more functional -- and beautiful -- reality than the one his family has provided.
| Features | Audio: French Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound | | Interactive Menus | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: English | | Theatrical Trailer | | Widescreen Version Enhanced For 16:9 TVs |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Image |
| Release Date: 10/25/2005 |
| Running Time: 107 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 1993 | | Catalog ID: 1637LIDVD | | UPC: 00014381163728 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: French | | Available Audio Tracks: French | | Available Subtitles: English | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Widescreen 1.66:1 |
| Cast & Crew | Ginette Reno | | Julien Guiomar | | Maxime Collin | | Aimee Danis, et. al. - Producer | | Francois Seguin - Production Designer | | Gilbert Becaud - Original Music By | | Gilbert Sicotte - Narrated By | | Guy Dufaux - Cinematographer | | Jean-Claude Lauzon - Director | | Jean-Claude Lauzon - Writer | | Michel Arcand - Editor | | Robert Lantos - Executive Producer |
| Awards |
Cannes Film Festival (1992) | | | Jean-Claude Lauzon, Nominee, Golden Palm |
| Memorable Quotes| "I dream, therefore I'm not." ---- Leolo (Maxime Collin) |
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| | Professional Reviews | Rolling Stone
"...A lyrical film of surprising warmth. Lauzon is a talent to watch..." 04/15/1993 p.72New York Times
"...Eccentric humor that gradually gives way to devastating seriousness....Thoroughly unpredictable..." 09/29/1992 p.C11 Film Comment
"...With bold, precise strokes Lauzon portrays the magic and isolation of anybody's youth..." 07/01/1992 p.2-8 Chicago Sun-Times
"...LEOLO is an enchanting, disgusting, romantic, depressing, hilarious, tragic movie, and it is quite original....The structure of the film is another amazement, gradually revealing itself..." 04/08/1993 p.34 USA Today
"...Lauzon's hypnotic visuals combine with ethereal Tom Waits vocals to put over this aggressively earthy French-Canadian childhood remembrance..." 03/25/1994 p.3D Sight and Sound
"[L]yrical and grotesque by turns, it is an autobiographical coming-of-age story....Lauzon doesn't skimp on the brutality, but there is plenty of visual invention too." 11/01/2008 p.86 Chicago Sun-Times 9 of 10
Leolo is an enchanting, disgusting, romantic, depressing, hilarious, tragic movie, and it is quite original - one of the year's best. I have never seen one like it before. It cannot be assigned a category, or described in terms of other films. I felt alive when I was watching it. If you are one of those lonely film lovers who used to attend foreign films, who used to seek out the offbeat and the challenging, and who has given up on movies because they all seem the same, crawl out of your bunker and go to see this one. - Roger Ebert
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