Leolo

Multiple award winning 1992 comedy drama Leolo finally gets a UK DVD release. With the emphasis on the 'drama', the French Canadian Leolo is the bleak, squalid story of Leo Lauzon, a young boy struggling to cope with his extremely dysfunctional (or downright insane) extended family.

Although shot through with the darkly comic and absurd, director Jean-Claude Lauzon's Leolo remains a gruelling, yet touching watch. Leo's disgusting home life would be hilarious were it not so awful - his Father insists that all family members pass a stool every day to remain healthy, his short-tempered grandfather attempts to kill him and his siblings offer no respite, one an obese fantasist and the other an insecure body building fanatic.

Leo finds refuge through refusing to acknowledge that he is a part of this madness and retreating into the one book he can find in the house, along with his writings, his mantra being 'Because I dream, I am not'. He constructs a fantasy life in which he is Italian (based on his bizarre fruit-impregnation dreams - you would have to see for yourself) and in a relationship with his beautiful next door neighbour. He attempts to become merely a spectator of his own life, but as the film shows, without an emotional connection to reality it is difficult to sustain yourself for long.

Leolo is overlong and labours its points a little, but it's undeniably powerful and original, with the film's themes and its sinister, beautifully filthy look surely an influence on other magical realists such as Guillermo Del Toro. Well worth a look.

Extras: Trailer.

Released on DVD on 29th September 2008 by Network.

Written by Simon Amphlett.