You know you have an important movie when it influences an entire country. That's right, when this movie came out, I heard that girls were obsessed with Natalie Portman's character (Matilda) in Korea. For a while, Matilda's hair reigned supreme.
Recently, I have been studying storyboarding: the basic guidelines, and some examples. Amongst them was this movie. So I decided to give it a re-watch. I used to like this movie before, but now... I love it. The entire team that made this movie - they knew they had a gem in their hands.
Remember, this movis was made in 1994, so it has all the 90s charm with it - before cellphones.
I saw it to study the shots in this movie, and what I saw was nothing short of genius. This movie is labeled as an action movie, but you don't really see the thriller drama until the last twenty minutes. In fact, the movie has a low budget film to it - except for those big explosions.
There are many great things about this movie. The pacing of the plot is constantly moving; even during the quiet moments. Whenever you feel the movie slowing down, it picks back up. Just give it a watch if you haven't. Every interaction in this movie is intriguing - like the one where Matilda flirts witht he old hotel receptionist. Or when she decides to confront Gary Oldman's character - the DEA agent.
I appreciated this movie a lot more on this last watch - despite the premise being as ridiculous as it was - a little girl has an intimate relationship with a hitman who has lost most of his humanity -- guy is a machine in the beginning.
The core of this movie is the interaction between Leon and Matilda - how she helps him [and the audience] see the humanity in the killer. But what I came to realize is the secret ingredient behind: that is Matilda.
The girl is insane, nearly psychotic in her approach to everything - can't really blame her since she grew up in a broken household. Leon, in his innocence, takes this girl and accepts her in her entirety - including her harassment and her constant attempts at manipulation.
You know, one would think that a girl like that - the answer to her is to send her to some rehabilitation center to make her more acceptable to society, but that is not what Leon does. He takes her in to his world. He tries to explain to her how dark the world of revenge can be, and when she refuses to listen. He decides to support her in her decision - which he ends up paying it with his life. But with that, he makes her realize that there is no happy ending for his kind of lifestyle.
I think that it is the depth of the relationship between these two broken people - that made making Matilda a bit of a sexual deviant, not as twisted as the premise.
