I wouldn’t say that there’s sexual tension “between the two”. It’s entirely one-sided: Mathilda wants to have sex with Leon (or at least, thinks she wants to), but I don’t see any indication that Leon is interested in Mathilda at all (at least, not in that way).
No I agree. And I don’t even know that she wants to have sex with Leon so much as just to have sex. She’s young; she’s more in love with the idea of love than anything else. Leon is one of the first people who’s nice to her and kind to her, and I know all about that - falling for someone just because they are nice to you.
I don’t think Leon is into her that way, and I don’t think he’s a pedo. Maybe if they’d had a few years together something might have developed, but right now he seems more bemused and confused at her attentions than anything else. Leon doesn’t really look like a ladies’ kind of man in the first place. He just does his job and takes care of his plant.
I never saw the movie WITH the extra scenes, and had only heard vaguely that there was a movie version that had more stuff in it.
I watched La Femme Nikita for the first time in a while and it doesn’t hold up nearly as well as Leon, in part because of the lousy 80’s-style soundtrack (keep in mind that I like 80’s music). Victor (the cleaner) is almost a buffoon.
What do people think about Leon’s deal with Tony. Was Tony really ‘holding’ Leon’s money or did he just give Leon enough to live on without complaining and never intended to give him all the money he had earned? It always seemed to me like he was exploiting Leon’s simple nature. Any thoughts?
Haven’t seen the movie in a while, but I always figured Tony was cheating Leon. Leon probably has about as much education in math as in reading – barely any. Tony can easily fool him. I think when Mathilda goes to Tony at the end and asks for the money, and Tony gives her his spiel about how he will keep it safe, Mathilda sees through it right away. IIRC, she starts crying at that point, realizing that the hope she had of at least being financially OK is now gone.
I just heard about this movie about a month ago and watched the regular theatrical version online. I thought it was very good. I had never heard of Natalie Portman before Star Wars and didn’t know she had done anything this early on. I thought her performance was incredible.
Shortly after seeing the movie, I heard about several extended versions that existed and looked for the longer version that had all the extra scenes stated in the earlier posts. I watched the movie again with those extra scenes, and while I noticed the additional footage when it was on, it didn’t feel to me like they stood out as not fitting in with the rest of the movie.
Like the scenes where Mathilda was getting people to open their doors so that Leon could cut the door chain and gain access to their victim.
It was the same ruse used over and over after finding out that it was fast, simple and effective. Leon was taking out some bad guys that were competing with Tony, so Leon and Mathilda worked as a team to take a bunch of them out in short order.
The part at the end where the victim is on to their trick, and starts shooting through the door and wall, is where Leon decides to end the matter quickly by tossing in a grenade.
At little over the top? Maybe. But the look of surprize on Mathilda’s face when she looks up at him and he shows her the pin is what makes the scene and shows that even she was shocked at his simple solution to the situation.
As mentioned by an earlier poster, the scene with Mathilda wearing the dress, she was explaining what her sister and friends did with the boys they dated. Mathilda was still a virgin, but thought that sex and love were the same thing and that she wanted to have sex with Leon. She was in love and that’s what you do. She asked him if she would like it her first time.
After Leon told his story about losing the one love of his life, Mathilda was disappointed, but accepted the situation and didn’t press the matter. She wanted to share the bed with Leon, and to sleep next to him with his arm around her, and I think that was the most closeness she really needed from him.
And I might note, that a lot was made on other boards about the age and pedophilia aspect of the relationship, but it was obvious enough that Mathilda was pubescent (barely), and since there was no true sexual desire shown between them, I think the claims are excessive.
I have no doubt that both truly loved the other.
Mathilda loved Leon, but she was also in love with him and acted as such. I don’t think she had any real desire for a sexual relationship at that point in her life, but she wanted a bit of affection.
Leon loved Mathilda in a very different way. He was very confused about his feelings for her because he had never had a lasting relationship before. He didn’t want to lose Mathilda, but he knew it was dangerous for her to be with him, and that concerned him.
This was a love story. Not illicit love, not improper love – just an improbable and unexpected love. An unusual pairing, an unusual set of circumstances, but a love story none the less.
Eh, that’s my take, YMMV.
Here is my assessment of this movie:
They made it creepy for no good reason. Why not have the 12 or 15 year old kid be male and have no pedophilia elements to it at all?
That wouldn’t really solve much. It could still be interpreted to have a homosexual element if you cast the role as a male.
Yes, but, film it without those elements… the movie defiently puts hints in there just to “mess with your head” you could make the movie without such “suggestions”
I just saw this film for the first time, and remembered there was a recent thread on it.
My take - it was an incredible feat of acting, particularly for a 12 year old.
The “creepy” elements (that Mathilda out and out propositions an adult man) were fully realistic and integral to the plot - the point is that these were deeply damaged people attempting to forge a relationship. She “loves” Leon, but has no pattern for “love” other than those set by her abusive parents, her nasty sister (and her magazines), or her wee little brother. Plus, she has a great desire to grow up - which she associates with being powerful like Leon, rather than abused, as she had been up until she met him. To her, sex is part of that grown-up life that she wants, together with vengence; also a way of tying Leon to her.
Leon, on the other hand, appears to feel more paternal towards her. He, grows gradually to “love” Mathilda, but as the child she is, not the adult she wants to be. This puts him straight into serious conflict - he wants to protect Mathilda, protecting Mathilda means removing her from his lifestyle, but she doesn’t want that kind of protection - she wants revenge (and his love). To what extent should Leon, a damaged and dysfunctional person himself, concede to Mathilda what she wants, rather than what is in her best interests?
The interesting part of the movie (and again, if the acting wasn’t stellar it would not have worked) was the way the director shows us how Mathilda attempts to manipulate Leon in order to get what she wants - he knows she is doing it, but her willingness to go to any lengths utterly defeats his attempts to restrain her. This is shown most clearly in the “Russian Roulette” Scene:
Where she ‘plays a game’ with him - if she survives Russian Roulette, he’ll accept that she will stay with him ‘forever’. He tells her there is a round in the chamber and pretends disinterest - but knocks the gun away (and it goes off). She whispered “I win”; and indeed, she had.
That movie would be The Mechanic with Charles Bronson.
With the additional element that Bronson’s hitman suspects he is training his replacement, which leads to an explosive and shocking finale.
LOL…you have seen other Luc Besson films? I’d say she has a very high likelihood of growing up to be either an assassin or constantly taken hostage.
Actually, the Charles Bronson and Jan-Michael Vincent characters were originally supposed to be lovers. (Though JWV’s character too old for it to be pedophilia.)
When I found that out it actually made more sense to me. The one element I had difficulty with in the storyline was why would Bishop (Bronson’s character) keep training McKenna (Vincent’s character) once he found out his bosses did not want him to ---- knowing that his bosses were the kind to have him killed or, at least, try to have him killed if he disobeyed and continued training McKenna.
Seemed a hell of a risk to take. And why would he take it? Because he’s feeling a isolated and McKenna “gets” what he does for a living?
But, McKenna as his lover. And this is what Jan-Michael Vincent looked like back then…
image 1
image 2
image 3
This was JMV a few years later
Okay, you’re a 50 year old guy who’s feeling lonely and that’s in your bed and you’ve become infatuated the way older men can for someone much younger…yeah, I can see being willing to risk your life to keep that in your bed.
So the original script called for them to be lovers. (At the time – according to this documentary I saw — homosexual men were often bad guys so two hitman would fit into how gays were being cast.)
Then, from what I read, Bronson refused to play gay in the movie so the homosexual element was dropped. To the movie’s detriment, IMHO.
But, as Roger Ebert described it, it’s still “two cobras circling each other”.
It’s not like Leon is a burglar, is it ? One assumes each of those home invasions ended with some dead mobster. Mobster shooting through the door because he’s been expecting Leon and he’s heard about the gum trick is not surreal. Disappearing after blowing someone with a grenade is a little bit more so, but then again so is BRING EEEEVERYYYYOOOONE (or a cop routinely taking drugs while on the job, for that matter, though it *was *the 90s :)), so.
[QUOTE=Satchmo]
What do people think about Leon’s deal with Tony. Was Tony really ‘holding’ Leon’s money or did he just give Leon enough to live on without complaining and never intended to give him all the money he had earned? It always seemed to me like he was exploiting Leon’s simple nature. Any thoughts?
[/QUOTE]
I think it’s clear that Tony’s spent the money he was “holding”, which is why he’s so reluctant to give it all back in one go ; but on the other hand while Leon might not be Einstein he knows how many jobs he’s been on and he’s probably told Mathilda, so she won’t be fooled.
I don’t think he thought about it as defrauding Leon though, as he seems to genuinely care for him. You know, in a simpleton manipulated into becoming a deadly hitman kind of way :o. He just never expected Leon to actually ever need all of it.
I think Tony simply never expected Leon to survive to spend any of it. Given that the fellow had no social life and no dependents, that meant Tony could keep the cash without any qualms of concience, once Leon (more or less inevitably) gets killed.
Mathilda’s appearance upset this plan, and it would have been interesting to see what developed if the movie had a sequel.
On another note - once scene that troubled me at the time is where Mathilda tells the clerk at the hotel they are staying in that Leon isn’t her father, but her lover. Next thing you know, the clerk boots them out. What was her motive for doing that?
Just being a bored, slightly bratty teenager?
Actually, scratch that.
Both Leon and Mathilda are broken people, for reasons already detailed upthread.
Mathilda was play-acting on a fantasy, one she wanted to be true, in a kind of bratty, bored teenaged manner.
Makes sense.
Another odd thing about that scene is that they don’t show any reaction from Leon. You’d think he’d be rightly pissed.
I think he’s just stunned and/or too embarrassed for words ; but it’s been a while since I watched the film.