Leon

Shape of my heart by Sting has been one of my favorite songs since very long time ago. However, it was only last week that I found out that this song is a soundtrack of the film, Leon. One of the students from “Advanced English Writing and Presentation” class introduced this film and the soundtrack in her presentation. For the plot sounded very interesting, I tried not to listen to her presentation on purpose, blocking my ears, not to “spoil” the film and waited for the end of my midterm exam to watch the film. Finally, “the day” came. As soon as I finished my last midterm exam yesterday, I ran home and downloaded the film Leon. And it was certainly more than what I had expected.

             Most of all, the actors and actresses were just “perfect.” What I mean by this is that they seemed to represent their characters in the film as if it was their own life. Jean Reno, who played the role of Leon, shows the character’s feelings very effectively only with his eyes. He does not speak very much in the film. Despite such fact, through his face expressions, especially his eyes, it was possible for me to read what he was trying to say and how he was feeling each time. And this character matched the traits of Leon perfectly, a “foreign cleaner,” who has no friends or family, but his plant and guns. I felt sympathy and awe at the same time looking at his life.

In addition to this, I was more than amazed by Natalie Portman, who played Matilda in the film. Matilda is a twelve year old girl whose life is really “twisted.” She suffers constant violence from her family and, without any time for her to recover from this, all of her family members get killed by a “police.” As a revenge for her little brother, she pleads Leon to train her to become a “cleaner.” In spite of the fact that she was actually very young when she played that role, she performs her role brilliantly. I was really charmed by her acting.

Moreover, the plot of the film was great. Not always, but some films fail to find the balance between action and love and story; in trying to show spectacle action, either the story becomes illogical or too simple. Nevertheless, Leon illustrates every element with profoundness. Even though this film does not really contain “blockbuster actions,” it creates great suspense and actions which made me to clench my fist for it made me very nervous. And the love between Leon and Matilda was also just beautiful. Whereas this love between an old man and a young girl could seem unrealistic or even unacceptable, the love they show was more than agreeable. Especially, at the end where Matilda plants the “friend” of Leon, I couldn’t stop myself from crying.

Whenever I read a book or watch a movie, I tend to become very critical. I always try to find faults or “holes” in them. And because I usually download past movies and watch them at home, I tend to skip parts and turn them off earlier, before the ending credits come out. However, for the music that was played at the very end, and also for that I could feel the movie lingering on in my mind, I could not turn it off even after all the ending credits were out. And to my surprise, I haven’t yet found any “holes” of the movie. Thank you, whoever it was that represented this film!