End of the movie ***SPOILER*** - Léolo (1993) Discussion

[–] jivotinka 20 years ago

Not really, but he gives up on the disease his whole family is struggling against and his mind does, in a way, die. He simply falls in a catatonic coma and is probably never going to wake up!

Nadja

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[–] kragenspeck 19 years ago

Me and a friend disagree about the end.
I see him giving up himself ("I don't dream anymore"), and the final image thas shows him running free in a plain is just a sad reminiscence about how happy he could/should have been.

My friend thinks that after the psychiatric treatment he decides to quit his escapist dream world and _does_ run free...

I have read some about the author, Claude Lauzon, and stick to my point of view. I think he's is pessimistic about the world and man in general.

Regards,
Lutz

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[–] beetlebum50 19 years ago

The ending was sad

I saw it on TV but missed some parts of the movie.

Ginette Reno was amazing but she is amazing in Mammbo Italio

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[–] howard.schumann 19 years ago

I would like to think that he doesn't die or remain catatonic since the film is semi-autobiographical and we know the director survived a troubled childhood.

"...and I will leave but the birds will stay, singing"-Juan Ramon Jimenez

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[–] jboras 19 years ago

Actually the director Claude Lauzon died in a small plane crash in Northern
Quebec in 1997. He was the pilot of a Cessna in which his girlfriend also died.

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[–] howard.schumann 19 years ago

That is a fact yet it has nothing to do with how the film ends.

"Death is just a body problem" - Chuck Griswold

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[–] jboras 19 years ago

Never said it did.
Show the dead some respect,a-hole.

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[–] daniel_lucas_bentley 19 years ago

he doesnt die, he gets in a psicotic shock, its a kind of coma, one of the treatments for psicotic shocks is getting the patient into ice like in the movie, is probable that he would wake up (in fact i do believe he waked up becouse you hear an adult voice narrating the story) he gets in shock becouse the only thing that kept him sane and not crazy (like all his family)was his neighbor (Bianca i think) and when he went and had sex with the other girl he felt like he was cheating Bianca, thats why there is a scene in which Leolo cant find Bianca in his Italy

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[–] Bjorgen 19 years ago

The ending is obviously open to interpretation. There will never be an explanation that ties up all of the loose ends for this movie; there is no denouement. Many works of classic literature use this as a tool to encourage thought, discourse, debate, etc. Leolo died. He turned schizophrenic. He experienced myocardial infarction. Whichever way it is chosen to be viewed, no answer is correct.

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[–] matatimbres 17 years ago

So as open to interpretation as it is... Leo Lauzon does not die but Leolo did.

Sad sad....yet so beautiful.

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[–] hustedt 18 years ago

Props to Howard for being as mean as I am.

Amused.

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[–] howard.schumann 18 years ago

I don't get it.

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away" – Philip K. Dick

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[–] Aphostile 19 years ago

Every time you do the nasty with a cat, God kills a director.

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[–] hustedt 18 years ago

Hello closed mind.

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[–] slacker_jester 19 years ago

An adult voice speaking in the first person (as Leolo) narrates the story.

Don't think he's died.

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[–] hustedt 18 years ago

That was the Word Tamer reading the poetic works of the small child, lost forever to his world of dreams.

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[–] aimelle 18 years ago

No, there are clearly two voices reading the texts. One is the Word Tamer (Pierre Bourgault), then other is a grown-up Leolo (Gilbert Sicotte).

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[–] alvarez8621 19 years ago

He doesn't die, I think, and this is my humble opinion, that he is pushed over the edge. He falls into the trap that his whole family was in, I mean look at everyone who was in a mental institution. His life takes away his ability to dream, reality ruins his imagination. It peaks with the notorious cat scene. Everything in his life that he is witness to or does himself slowly rots away his ability to believe in anything good and splendid. So he snaps. His mind closes off to the world. But that's simply what I think.

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[–] SeethesignS 19 years ago

Léolo doesn't die, he goes into a catatonic coma. The last shot in which he is seen running in Italy explains everything if you watch the movie carefully. As he says throughout the movie, "I dream, therefore I am not". Living in such a disfunctional family, his only joy, his only escape is dreaming, but he keeps getting pulled back in his awful reality by his family. They are all drowning him in their insanity; even his mother smothers his spirits, tough she does it unintentionally, like when she says, "stop writing in your journal and do your homework!"

Also, when Léolo is reading the book, L'Avalée des avalés, by the light of the fridge, he distinctly quotes: "La solitude, c'est mon palais" or "Solitude is my refuge, my palace". This explains why he intentionnally falls into a coma. He finally gets to be alone inside his head, alone with his dreams.

Which is why I think the ending is terrible, yet beautiful: he is free at last to dream of Italy, to dream he is with Bianca. The contrast of that shot in Italy with the one of the inside of the asylum, of Léolo in the ice bath, is evocative of how better he is in a coma, it's the closest he can get to not existing, without losing his precious, crucial ability to dream. The fact that an adult voice is narrating the movie is of no importance. I dont think he ever woke up, and whether or not he did is beyond the point. The movie ends at that particular time because the story stops there.

Being french, I can listen to it without subtitles, and I have noticed some major differences, errors and omissions in the english subtitles, just to let you know. This might explain some misunderstandings, or the fact that things dont always make sense during the english version of the movie. Director Jean-Claude Lauzon's script was written in the Quebec dialect, and flawlessly so, but at the same time it makes it impossible to translate it accurately, so mistakes in the subtitles are understandable.

This is a beautiful movie, my favorite movie, ever since I saw it for the first time it has and will forever haunt me.

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[–] hustedt 18 years ago

You made the correct interpretation. People who say he died and quits dreaming-- or ESCAPES his dreamworld through his catatonic state-- clearly misunderstood the film. Open to interpretation, yes-- but clearly, the waking dreams that Leolo lived freed him from the oppression of his family, and to determine that it was these waking dreams that he needed to escape from is ridiculous. He needed to escape from the strangling oppression of his class, the oppression that had broken his family, the oppression that created this void of disconnect between love and lust and sex and family that he continually filled with his dreams. The escape he choses is to live his life in dreams, and that is not so much a failure, as a surrender to societal pressures. What a great, tragic, loving film... anyone who says he escaped FROM the dreams, is wrong. Bravo to you for being right.

Yours,

An Arrogant Cinephile

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[–] vince_rx 17 years ago

Hi

SeethesignS, I agree with you on almost everything,. I have felt the same way about this movie every since I saw it for the first time in 1993 in Montreal. I still have the original VHS tape that I bought in 1994.

I NEED TO KNOW THIS. I have given up searching for it as googling and lyrics website, none has helped me.

I need to know the title of the Italian Song Bianca sings in that movie. I understand Italian language and tried googling the lyrics but had no luck finding anything close to that. The lyrics resemble a different Italian Song by Lucio Battisti but it is not the same song...

CAN ANYONE HELP ME PLEASE?

What is the title of the Italian song that BIANCA sings in LEOLO? I also need the name of the original Song writer and performer.

Someone has got to have written and performed this song somewhere...

Is the song's info in the credits at the end of the movie somwhere that I have missed?

thank you
I'd really appreciate any clues to this missing info that has puzzled me since this movie was released.

cheers...

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[–] The_unemployed_cynic 17 years ago

Here is how I saw this stunning movie:
When Leolo repeats the words "I dream, therefore I am not", he refers to the family curse of mental illness. It is like a mantra, used to convince himself that he is not insane like the rest of his family, or maybe to convince the gods to spare him.
This is where the director plays a cruel (and truly original) trick on us. By having an adult voice as a narrator, the viewer assumes that Leolo will escape the family curse and end up having a full, normal life. Which is why the ending, when we realise that Leolo's mantra has failed and his mind has disappeared into a dream world, is so devastating.

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[–] justinzp 17 years ago

he seemed poisoned at the end.

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[–] raindead 17 years ago

he just stops dreaming. Most of the thing was his dreams. He returns to real life. Whether he really dies or not is not importaint. It's a journey from good to evil. And back. Or vice versa. Don't take everything literally.

http://tinyurl.com/rveqd

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[–] vince_rx 17 years ago

I Agree with raindead. If you remember what the Word tamer used to tell Leolo: " Il faut rever Leolo, il faut rever..." You have to dream leolo, you (one has to) to dream...

Leolo's world revolved around his dreams. That is what a 12 year old boy does if we all could remember the dawn of our puberty well. A 12 year old boy's world can be sexually confusing (English class missed a body part...), exciting (masterbations) gloomy, cynical, at times violent (wanting to kill his grandpa) but yet poetic, romantic and full of beautiful and sunny dreams like a bright morning in Sicily with Bianca...(they like to read, that is the age most of us start reading great novels because those stories teach us to dream and dreams are beautiful...)

Bianca leaves (marries or whatever) Leolo thinks the dream is over, and mentally breaks down... what happens next is irrelevant to the main idea of this movie. I don't think the director meant to show that Leolo becomes mentally ill like the rest of his siblings did...

So Leolo could have died or grown up to be the old narrator, who knows... it's just, a chapter in his life ended sadly once the dream died...

I agree with the Cynic, when he said: " I dream therefore I am not..." he was refering to the curse of the mental illness passed on from his dad's genes ... he wanted to be unrelated to his family to escape the curse and we all know why in his dreams he chose Italy...

I also believe this movie was a protest against poverty especially in Quebec in those days (60's)

Leolo is growing up in the poor French neighborhood in Montreal in the middle of a conflict and rivarly (sometimes violent) between the Anglophones and Francophones and that adds to his cynicims, confusion, and frustration. In this movie Leolo is French, so is the director. Naturally we are to understand the French side...

I guess no one has any idea what the title of that Italian song is... I have many Italian and French songs but I cannot find that one...That song and the movie take me back in time when I lived in Montreal not too far from the apartment where they shot some of the scenes in this movie....

I have not read most of the threads here, has anyone mentioned yet or knows that the director and his girlfriend died in a plane crash that he was flying in 1997? just wondering... his life ended sadly just like his movie did...

cheers

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[–] jacob_sivander 17 years ago

I think the whole movie is simply about going from childhood into puberty and the loss of innocence and dreams that comes with that transition.

Leolo is really the only kid in this movie - everyone else in his life is older. The way the 'adult' world is portrayed to him is quite repelling and he is fighting it as hard as he can - by staying alone with his writings and dreams. As long as he dreams, he is not...an adult. What he eventually can't fight is his growing sexual desires - leaving childhood is inevitable for him as well...

So he 'cheats' on Bianca - the Bianca of his dreams that sings to him in Sicily, not the one who's getting paid to undress and suck on his grandfather's feet (one belongs to childhood and the other to the adult world). She punishes him by disappearing and the scene where he is in Sicily searching and screaming for her, could be interpreted as a last desperate effort of holding onto his childhood. In that scene he is wearing a much too big white shirt (to be grown into?). But she is gone and he is found on the floor - and the child in him goes into that catatonic state in the ice bath (surrounded by grown-up men of different ages taking showers, by the way - quite an absurd setting if this scene was to be taken literary!).

I believe the reason why he doesn't die in the movie, but is shown as catatonic, is that when he grows old (like the man reading his writings), that childishness wakes up again. Isn't that how it is - the child in us is just 'put on ice' (we suppress it)for a period of time in our life and then, hopefully, it comes back to us when we get old?

And finally, I believe the narrator's voice IS him (as opposed to some other people in this thread), and I think he is mixing texts written by himself as a kid and texts written by him as an adult. He DID become a poet.

I thought it was a fantastic movie anyway!

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[–] ErinSneath 17 years ago

I think it's the story of his first mental breakdown. It doesn't mean he'll be like that forever. It just means he has the same problems as the rest of his family.

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