'LEON' (1994)

Directed by Luc Besson.

Starring Natalie Portman, Jean Reno, Gary Oldman.

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FOREWORD

My first in a series of intellectual treatises on mainstream movies which have a pedo or alleged pedo theme, or part-content. Whilst the author himself does have a powerful sexual liking for teenage and preteen girls, attempt is made here at an objective discussion. The aim is to gleen what is the movie's message to us all, especially those of us with a disposition towards the young, as well as celebrating or criticising the movie's qualities. Occasionally a You-Tube link is placed so you can cross-reference a scene. This one is a full-length, 3,000 word treatise, dealing with a movie in which the topic is highly prominent.

1) The Theme
2) The Characters and Plot
3) What the movie says to us

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1) THE THEME

This movie is a tour de force for pedophile love - in the loosest possible sense of `pedophile', that is. For here, more than ever on this emotive subject we are faced with misunderstandings of definition straight away. The core of the movie is quite obviously the relationship between its two leads: Leon, an adult male assassin, and Mathilda, a 12-year-old girl. The theme of the movie is clearly `love', rather than the guns and ganster action which goes on all around it, thrilling though this is. A man? A 12-year-old girl? So, yes, the alarm bells of our paranoid and confused modern western sensibilities are set a-ringing, and opponents will immediately cry `pedophilia' (even though many do not understand the term, and will not even try to). But what is this `love' all about? Certainly it is a love that is shared between a pretty child and her rugged man-companion, but any rational discussion of this has to focus on the deep motivations, background and circumstances of each character.

Before even this can be attempted, we must be clear on our vocabulary. The accepted medical definition of pedophilia, which is about as close as we will ever get to a `correct' one for what is never going to be an exact science, stresses 3 features: attraction must be sexual, the object of the attraction must be pre-pubescent, and the attraction must be life-affecting for the one `afflicted' with it. The first of these we shall see, in the case of Leon, is ambiguous: at the very most he has a reluctant sexual attraction to her, which he steadfastly does not act on in any case. We see him blanching at the sight of a heartbreakingly skinny Mathilda emerging wearing a beautiful dress, and spluttering on his drink when she declares his name is `cute' and that she thinks she is `in love' with him. Also he mutters, "I don't think it's a good idea", when she suggests sharing the bed. When she gets her way in this, he looks decidedly tense laying beside her, and the editing makes clear that sleep is the only thing that happens.  

Secondly, is Mathilda pre-pubescent? This is also ambiguous, and probably deliberately so by the film-makers: she is a classic 12, child-thin with `pokies' that the camera makes sure we notice, and behaves very much on the edge of innocence. As the onset of menstruation is related to weight, it is very possible her bleeds have not yet started, but the script does not reveal it either way. Since movies are a visual medium, perhaps the key question is whether the actress herself - Natalie Portman - was having bleeds yet (she was 11). However, that was and is no doubt a closely-guarded secret! In conclusion, it has to be said that Mathilda's classification as a `child', in the strictly biological sense, is a hazy one. The question mark hangs over the entire movie, therefore, of whether it is pedophilia or `hebephilia' (sexual attraction to early pubescents) which should be the issue. The latter, unlike pedophilia, is contested by the medical community whether it is even a mental disorder. These points are relevant to the theme of `Leon', the movie, having as it does an exploration of love at its centre.

The third criteria - whether the attraction is at sufficient levels of obsession to distort the life of its sufferer - clearly does not apply to Leon. Before Mathilda came along, there is no reason to suppose whatsoever that he has an attraction - even the remotest interest - in kids. He lived out his life in a thick-skinned loneliness of self-preservation which his occupation demanded of him. After she appeared in his life, unsought and unexpected, certainly then he was affected, increasingly so. But this is in the context of a relationship specific to her, and in no way part of a general attraction to children. The primary conflict in his mind was whether to protect her from the perils she faced at the hands of those who murdered her family, or to simply let her go - and probably die. He choose to protect, which is hardly the motivation of a pervert, unless one wishes to be extremely cynical. Indeed, early on he ponders whether to shoot her himself - the professional and safe choice for him - but cannot bring himself to do it. His reluctance to do so was patently not based on any ulterior motive to enjoy the sexual opportunity fallen into his lap, but simply empathy for another human being at its most fundamental and righteous level.

Of course, the fact that all this is happening between a man in his mid-thirties and a 12-year-old girl (who looks more like 11 than 13), always has an edge to it. This may be described as `sexual tension', but the movie reveals - savagely, humorously and beautifully - that this is always underscored by a meeting of each other's souls, that is to say a genuine caring and love. Okay, maybe she's technically a child, so the movie's detractors can call it `pedophilia' if they insist - so long as they understand it is only in the broadest etymological sense: `child' + `love'. The energy behind it is goodness, albeit in a teasing setting of man and girl-child. After all, what was Leon supposed to do - cast her away because she was a child? Of course he would not be much of a hero if he did this, and herein lays the genius of this movie: whether people like it or not, it shows the circumstances of how a companionship between an unrelated child and adult can - and indeed had to - happen!

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2) THE CHARACTERS AND PLOT

Leon is an assassin, colloquially known as a `cleaner', and at the outset of the movie we see him at his brutal work. It's dog-eat-dog out there, and only the toughest and most skilled survive, and Leon is evidently one of those. However, he also seems kind of lonely and pathetic despite his hard-as-nails looks and nature. He lives alone in a crummy apartment, his only friend being a plant - a hosta - which he waters and puts into the sunlight with a loving ritualness. We come to learn he had a tough childhood, probably very little conventional education, and is emotionally and academically not at all bright. Indeed his `manager', more a guardian uncle, even holds his fees in a trust fund for him (herein is a little bit of side-humour: the guy seems trustworthy, but is plenty happy to be sitting on Leon's substantial earnings like a self-appointed bank). Leon has not even had a girlfriend since the age of 19. This is a man who believes he can live without loving, being loved, or caring for anybody.

That is until Mathilda comes along, who happens to live in the same apartment block with her dysfunctional family. The only real love in her life to date is her 4-year-old brother, whom we see in touching cuddles with her, but hardly her small-time drug-dealing father, slutty stepmother or chavvy elder half-sister ("Not even my good half at that", says Mathilda). Any abuse element in the movie is to be found coming from those three: we see Mathilda with facial bruising and a bloody nose in separate scenes where Leon passes her by in the corridor. She has bombed out of a good public school which might have been her salvation, choosing solace in truancy and cigarettes. She then, in her way, is equally alone. In the very first shot of her it is clear this is not an average 12-year-old - her garish clothes as she loiters with cigarette-in-hand, and her `cleopatra' haircut and modelesque face - any more than Leon is an average man. Who exactly is average, though, we may ask, particularly as Leon kind of speaks for us all when he informs Mathilda with simple honesty that life is `always shitty'.


Against this backdrop, they are thrown together, the cataclysmic - and catalytic - event being the execution of her entire family, including beloved little brother, by the bent copper Gary Oldman (superb) and his drug-running associates. These scenes typify the movie's blackly humorous but all-too-grounded-in-reality slant on violence and hardship. In fact, it would probably be a hard watch if it were not for this directorial approach, but the poignancy and power of its central `love story' (that is what it is, regardless of how one wants to argue the nature of morality of this love) is all the more acute. Mathilda, embodying at first nothing more than a helpess human being in need of saving, is taken in by Leon who is witnessing the commotion through his spyhole. Here is one of the movie's moments of tremendous style and symbolism: his door opens to her, and the camera gives us her almost surreal eyeview of a bath of light which she can head into. It is literally the path to her salvation, in spirit as well as body.

Leon is both a reluctant saviour and a reluctant stepfather, however. He is most certainly a reluctant `child molestor' and, as their relationship blossoms, it is always Mathilda who is seen to be the the sexual aggressor. She is at once a needy child-orphan and a fledgling sexual creature, though not nearly as advanced in this as Dolores Haze of Lolita fame. Her attempts at sexuality and romance are far more innocent and niave than Lola's ever were, and always imbued with the basic need for a protector-figure. It is this which remorselessly breaks down Leon's resistence and opens his soul, not her heartbreakingly sweet flirtations. It is the deliciously challenging and unsettling nature of the movie, however, that Leon is clearly not immuned to her gender and attractiveness. We see this in his speechless, open-mouthed expressions (once again, the humour) whenever she is `acting the woman'. Particularly, the priceless moment he sets eyes upon her in the dress  reveals this: every male viewer, if honest, understands his look at that point! Never does he act on it, however, despite the fact he seems at times to be overwhelmed by the cocktail of feelings she has brought his way.

* * *  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWIJpw9UJdQ  * * * 

In his emotional barrenness, less conditioned by the sociological rules of the western world than most of us, Leon embodies honest adult male instinct. This kicks in in their very first moments `together', when he attempts to cheer up the bereaved and traumatized youngster by playing puppet piggy for her. It was exactly what she needed just then, and their friendship was sealed. This develops as he undertakes the role of mentor to her, after she persuades him to train her in the ways of a `cleaner', whilst she acts as his housekeeper. He becomes father-figure by insisting she give up smoking and cussing, and their rapport deepens with spontaneous and silly games of water-fighting and charades. The latter, as effectively as any moment, demonstrates the hybrid innocence and effortless extravert sensuality of a 12-year-old as she cavorts around dressed and singing as Madonna. Leon gawps, being made to live out a childhood he has not had. The two, whatever the morality may be of it, are uncontravertibly filling a hole in each other's lives.

* * *  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLijyCCpVf0&feature=related  * * *

At the inevitable denouement with Gary Oldman and his villians, the relationship reaches an apex of `need' for each other, pure and simple. Leon is quite simply the one figure of love in Mathilda's life, regardless of whether this is interpreted as nymphet desire or parental need, a combination of both, or neither. Likewise, Leon informs her that she has made him `want life'. They utter the immortal words to each other, "I love you," and not a single viewer can doubt it - but, more to the point, we find ourselves asking what the hell it matters what `kind' of love it is. We are rooting for them both.

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3) WHAT THE MOVIE SAYS TO US

The scintillatingly-handled climax speaks to us on a gut level, saying `why the hell should they not love each other, and follow this love to wherever it leads, if they want to?' After the excitement is over, we do need to be a little more reflective than this, though. Firstly, can we conclude what Leon's true motivations are? He seems to be a blend of emotionally stunted, flawed adult with hero and saviour. He seems to be an undertaker of the role of innocent guardian whilst also feeling uncomfortable twinges of sexual attraction to a person who is at least 75% `child' in nature, and 100% in law. The ambiguity is deliberate on the part of the makers, and we have to make up our own mind. My verdict is that Leon is feeling the first stirrings of `hebephilia' - sexual attraction to an early pubescent - but his basic goodness, coupled with awareness of society's taboos, prevent him from acting on it. Probably the vast majority of men have felt this at some time in their lives, with a sizeable minority feeling it obsessively. Mathilda was, undeniably, showing the first signs of a developing female in body (those pokies) and distinctly more in personality. Since medical expertise itself is divided on whether hebephilia is a disorder (as opposed to a natural function of mankind), we shall declare Leon completely sane and moral.

* SPOILER CLIP * http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evWQ2MsDTS4 

A special mention on the would-be `shower scene' (cut on the insistence of Natalie Portman's parents before the movie's release) is called for at this point. We can but guess at Leon's emotions here as he blunders in on the lithe, smooth-skinned Mathilda and gets an eye-full of her bald camel-toe (probably bald, `mostly' bald at the very least one would think) and possibly her pert little buttocks. My guessing is that it would have been something strongly resembling shock, coupled with a knee-jerk self-denial of any lust towards the view. Neither emotion would have been much helped by Mathilda's words at that moment, as he fumbles to give her a towel for her modesty: "Oh, but I don't mind!" Even in this scene, however, Leon apparently resists any flickering urge to take her sexually. Ever the  protector in deed was Leon and, as the saying goes, `action defines the man'. If ever there was a scene to demonstrate that the movie is not one of seedy pedophilia, then this was it. Ironic, then, that it was censored!

It is doubtful, however, whether Leon would have felt the same obligation and affection towards her if she were a 12-year-old boy, and that of course speaks volumes. Indeed, the almost 'disturbingly' tender background music in their scenes together powerfully suggests the specific flavour of a man and female-child friendship. Would he even have opened that door to a boy at the beginning? Only Leon can say, and seeing as he is a fictional construct he will not be telling. Likewise, we can only speculate on how their relationship might have developed beyond the movie. It seems to me that only her sexual immaturity is what prevented them from being - as she claimed to the horror of the hotel proprietor, and the movie's black humour - `lovers'. If she was 16, for example, Leon would surely have wanted her and taken her. Quite possibly he would have done so at 14, those two extra years of development and demeanour in the `child' making a crucial difference. A realistic scenario would seem to be that he would have become mentor and lover to her throughout her teenage years and beyond, depending on how long they both lived and whether she met any other guy. 

Above all, the movie shows that non-familial love between a child and adult CAN happen, and WILL happen. Life, in most cultures, will of course throw up many obstacles to its realization. In the movie itself, it took a little suspension of disbelief to buy into the unusualness and coincidence of their situation - the extreme and almost super-hero nature of Leon's life, and he living next door to her as the murders happen. However, if it can be `imagined', it is `happening' somewhere, according to leading quantum theorists.  But you certainly don't have to look to parallel universes for less spectacular examples of it: this world is riddled with such relationships which are the tip of the iceberg of such `potential' relationships. At 12 - as modelled by Mathilda - the relationship can be on the very cusp of sexual and consenting. It can sure as hell be loving. As we go younger than this the sexual edge will be less and less, finally leaving only a little girl needing a parental figure. With a girl of Mathilda's age and state of development both physical and psychological, we can unequivocally say that a blossoming sexual relationship with her can be natural and right. Younger than this, and there seems no reason the `love' could not exist, but we would have the problem of justifying any sexual attraction as non-sick and non-exploitative, but that is a debate beyond the confines of this particular movie.

Last but not least, the movie suggests there is hope for all us kiddy-lovers: Jean Reno (Leon), grizzled and with famous bags under his eyes, is not particularly a young or good-looking guy! Yet a 12-year-old fell for him, convincingly, both believable personalities. It would seem that love is truly a meeting of the souls, and age ultimately just a number.


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email mazeppa1968@hotmail.co.uk if you have anything to add or would enjoy discussing this movie further, or if you can suggest others to review (besides the obvious - Lolita!) 