I give this film a 10 for its artistic qualities. It's one of the best Canadian films that has ever been made. The early tragic death of the director (who died shortly after the making of this film) prevented it from getting promoted, and the attention that it deserves.
Why I think that Léolo has the recipes to perfect art:
1. The poetry: Léolo has a secret argument. On the surface it's a story of a coming-of-age child who discovers sex and death, who rebels against the family's hereditary madness and does so by becoming a dreamer. The madness itself is a metaphor of the threshold between reality and fiction, which is played with in the magic-realism in the narration. The intertextuality to Don Quijote (one of its main theme is madness and reality and fiction), the metaphor to the plastic red rose made in China, also works into the theme of what it seems and what it really is, and the ambiguity that exists in between.
2. The social context: The reality of poor, working class French Canadians living in a Anglo Canadian dominant society, and the experience of a child growing up in this grotesque reality.
3. Entertainment: The dark humour - the scene where the cross falls off the wall, for example. The alternate ways that one could use pig liver.
4. The humanity: The profound psychological exploration of the characters. The magic-realism also provides bitter humour in this context, such as in Fernand's case. He gets buff out of fear, but the fear remains in him no matter what he does. Léo's clash in identity submits him to madness but also is preventing him from it because he is dreaming, and in this dream he is the Italian Léolo.
These are only quick memorable examples. Watch the film for the full experience.
Why I think that Léolo has the recipes to perfect art:
1. The poetry: Léolo has a secret argument. On the surface it's a story of a coming-of-age child who discovers sex and death, who rebels against the family's hereditary madness and does so by becoming a dreamer. The madness itself is a metaphor of the threshold between reality and fiction, which is played with in the magic-realism in the narration. The intertextuality to Don Quijote (one of its main theme is madness and reality and fiction), the metaphor to the plastic red rose made in China, also works into the theme of what it seems and what it really is, and the ambiguity that exists in between.
2. The social context: The reality of poor, working class French Canadians living in a Anglo Canadian dominant society, and the experience of a child growing up in this grotesque reality.
3. Entertainment: The dark humour - the scene where the cross falls off the wall, for example. The alternate ways that one could use pig liver.
4. The humanity: The profound psychological exploration of the characters. The magic-realism also provides bitter humour in this context, such as in Fernand's case. He gets buff out of fear, but the fear remains in him no matter what he does. Léo's clash in identity submits him to madness but also is preventing him from it because he is dreaming, and in this dream he is the Italian Léolo.
These are only quick memorable examples. Watch the film for the full experience.