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32 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
More Bitter than Sweet, an Honest Comming of Age Film, December 16, 1999
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.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Caution to those who are hurting, September 15, 2003
By A Customer
The movie is a work of pure genius as it goes into the subconscious mind of a sensitive boy in terrible psychological anguish, raised by people with no ability to love. Dangerously obsessive, perhaps psychotic, parents are raising their children as if they were less than animals. One by one we see the children losing touch with reality as their only coping mechanism. For the duration of the movie, we are hoping that our hero Leolo will beat the odds. This movie is best seen by professionals in the fields of psychiatry and psychology and too strong for sensitive people who are not.
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19 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A sensitive, beautiful, and extremely poetic film., July 12, 2003
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!!
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