MovieChat Forums > Léon (1994) Discussion > Do you think Mathilda would have lost he...

Do you think Mathilda would have lost her virginity to leon...


If he had survived? I think he would.

reply

I began a thread on this question. See the thread "The implication of this film". I agree with you.

It should be against the law to use 'LOL'; unless you really did LOL!

reply

Sorry.

reply

No need to apologize! I didn't mean to complain. I just thought you might be interested in reading that other thread.


It should be against the law to use 'LOL'; unless you really did LOL!

reply

Got it.

reply

[deleted]

Anything can happen in your fantasy world. However, if you mean what the director and actors thought they were conveying, it isn't in or implied by the film. Besson originally wanted a girl between 15-17 for his original script which did include Mathilda seducing Leon. When he switched to a much younger girl (Portman was still 11 when shooting began) he made radical changes to the main characters that turned Leon into a knightly parental figure and Mathilda into a child with an adult intelligence building an escapist fantasy world based on cartoons and movies from her limited experience.

Reno specifically answered this question for himself and his role in a chapter he wrote in Besson's book about the film published in France in 1995. He said that, even if Leon had survived, they never would have had a sexual relationship. That Leon was and would remain a loner, abandoning Mathilda at home while he spent his days somewhere else. Besson defined his character as a hen with a comb ( a female chicken that only looks like a rooster).

The new deluxe edition of Leon specifically calls it a platonic relationship. Elsewhere it defines Mathilda's place as that of a 12-year-old daughter with the mental age of an adult being protected by an adult with the mental age of a fifteen year-old.

The closest matches, in the film world, are to Gloria and the young boy in Cassavetes' Gloria, which also has a solicitation for sex by the boy that is refused, and to Besson's script for Unleashed {Danny the Dog], where the young girl helps a controlled young killer find himself while going off to live her own life.

Besson's typical relationships in film revolve around a dolphin avatar hero/heroine, who gives freely, but is an alien who can never meld fully into human life.

reply

That is a very good explanation and thanks for that DFC. However I don't think the two posters above will be satisfied with that, they seem to want something more sexually lurid.

I mean even the question in the post "Mathilda would have lost her virginity" is prurient and juvenile. When did that start to matter to others?

..*.. TxMike ..*..
Take a risk, Take a chance, Make a change. Kelly Clarkson - Breakaway

reply

However I don't think the two posters above will be satisfied with that, they seem to want something more sexually lurid.


If I thought the original poster was a troll like SnoozeAlarm, I wouldn't have bothered. For people I don't know, I write these replies just to add a realistic perspective about this film for other readers who are open-minded, with no expectation that I will change the mind of a person projecting a personal experience or fantasy onto the film characters.

reply

I will just think in my heart that Mathilda would have eventually gotten to Leon.

reply

get to Leon. The story arc is that he made it possible for her to complete her childhood and school free from the poisonous aspects of her disjointed life, confident that she was loved, not for sex or money, but for herself by someone.

It was Besson's experience with a dolphin when he was a lonely kid of soon-to-be divorced parents and Mathilda's age. Like Mathilda with the plant, Besson has kept the dolphin even now as part of the logo for his movie studio. Is it so bad an ending that she gave growing up another chance?

reply

Lol. Well, I was thinking more along the lines of, she would have sexed him up. That is what I meant by getting to him.

reply

Lol. Well, I was thinking more along the lines of, she would have sexed him up.


No kidding. 

reply

While I fully agree with this assessment for the time directly after the movie ends, I'd say it could happen in the distant future, say, 6+ years after the events of the movie.

See, Leon may be the loner that you describe but the central point of the movie is that both of them are changing. BOTH of them are learning from each other. While she learns how to kill people, how to handle guns, how to train and to organize life, but also how to keep emotions in check when needed, Leon learns how to have fun and relax, how to interact with people and, well, how to love and care for somebody. This may start out as father-daughter relationship for him and a fantasy to be an adult by her, however, if years passed by, Leon learned to loosen up, Mathilda became a fully grown woman ... why not?

reply

Like Woody Allen and Soon-Yi Previn? Just 38 years difference in their ages. No one thought it would last but they have been married almost 19 years!!

But back to the OP, what a prurient, silly and worthless discussion topic, "lose her virginity to Leon". Some people just have to keep their minds in the gutter.

Tony

reply

He sure didnt change filming her in short shorts and tank tops.

reply

Depends. Is sodomy considered losing your virginity?

reply

Repulsive.

reply

IF LEON HAD SURVIVED is often the scenario, when someone try's to to back up their claim about the sexual undertones in this film. Being aware of Leon's fate (for me) this has never been a convincing argument, which brings a similar topic to mind. I believe everyone is in agreement, that Leon and Mathilda love each other. It has been stated, that the only reason Leon refuses to become her Lover, is because of his own psychological problems. Could it also be possible, that he rejects her offer of sex, because he loves her? Sounds reasonable to me. Accepting her offer, would be conflictive, with his desire to protect her, not to mention his willingness to die for her as well. I believe their Love for each other, is a far more interesting concept, than Mathilda losing her virginity. Sadly a lot of people disagree.

reply

" Could it also be possible, that he rejects her offer of sex, because he loves her? Sounds reasonable to me. Accepting her offer, would be conflictive, with his desire to protect her, not to mention his willingness to die for her as well. I believe their Love for each other, is a far more interesting concept, than Mathilda losing her virginity. Sadly a lot of people disagree. "

Very well put. It seems that certain people always look for a sexual angle to any relationship. Leon and Mathilda have a relationship. Mathilda is too young to realize all the ramifications of what she is trying to talk Leon into. Flawed as his character is in many ways he understands that as a father figure he must always try to do the right thing with Mathilda, even evidenced in the scenes where he tells her to quit smoking, to quit cursing, to be careful which guys she hangs around. To think that "Leon and Mathilda might have had a sexual relationship if he had survived" is not only unnecessarily prurient, it also misses the whole point of the story.

..*.. TxMike ..*..
Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes not.

reply

The story makes a point of Leon dying at the end, so that Mathilda can complete her childhood, and grow up to live a normal life, free from the world, that she was a part of. I personally believe, that Mathilda's escape from this world of death and violence, and her new chance at life, is the true implication of this film.

reply

If he haddnt died he would have raised her an kept her around maybe left at some point but eventually when she got older like 16 or 17 which is legal age for sex in a number of countrys she would have wanted to bang him now rather he would have given in depends on him as a person she wasnt his real child so him banging her at a legal age really isnt a big deal but i have no idea if him as a person at his age would bang a 16 year old or 17 year old no matter how hot she is i dont really think a 16 year old is old enough to have sex but i do think a 17 year old is

reply

Just the fact that you use the term "bang" speaks to how juvenile you are. That's all we need, more kids like you trying to analyze this fine movie.

Go watch cartoons.

Leon

reply

I am an adult. I might have banged Mathilda if I was Leon. Deal with it.

reply

Disgusting. You need help.

reply