Leolo

Jean-Claude Lauzon's highly praised film tells the strange story of L?olo, a young boy from Montr?al. Told from L?olo's point-of-view, the film depicts his family of lunatics and L?olo's attempts to deal with them. Not one individual in the boy's life is well adjusted. His brother, after being beaten up, spends the film bulking up on growth protein. The grandfather hires half-naked girls to bite off his toenails and, in a brutal rage, almost kills L?olo. As he witnesses his family decay around him, L?olo retreats into himself and the fantasy world he has constructed. In response to the weirdness of his daily life, L?olo creates a little mental mayhem of his own which Lauzon renders in an amazing series of free-form, surreal images. Eventually, this precarious balance of reality and fantasy cracks and L?olo is hospitalized after attempting to murder his grandfather. The score by Tom Waits underscores the narrative arc of L?olo's breakdown. On its release, the film won numerous awards including the International Fantasy Film Award for Best Director (1992) and a Genie Award for Best Original Screenplay (1992).