Léon Analysis (Eryk Wiszenko)

Léon The Professional

Key Information

Director:

 Luc Besson

Writer:

 Luc Besson

Stars:

 Jean Reno, Gary Oldman, Natalie Portman

Storyline

Mathilda, a 12-year-old girl, is reluctantly taken in by Léon, a professional assassin, after her family is murdered. Léon and Mathilda form an unusual relationship, as she becomes his protégée and learns the assassin's trade.

This screenshot in the trailer to Léon the audience are greeted with a shot of a suitcase full of weaponry, which keeps the audience on suspense as we hope for some action and classic shootings of the 19th century assassins. The suitcase is fully loaded with ammunition for heavy weaponry, it also gives a sense of crime and drama.

The film leon uses low key lighting or natural lighting in nearly all of its scenes, apart from some of the internal scenes which creates a sinister feeling and the feeling of the unknown. The scene also indicates that there will be scenes of crime and shooting thats awaiting to be seen by the audience and paired with low key lighting, excites the audience and grabs them straight from the start.

This is a similar shot to the poster of Léon,with him dressed in retro circular sunglasses with a polarised lens, revealing its surroundings by the reflection in the lens. This scene brings about the feeling of crime and mystery, as in the glasses we can see a reflection of a man, which Léon is clearly making business with, but his sunglasses are there for identity protetcion, as he does not want to be fully seen.

This scenes confirms all our predicitons about Léon, that he has something to do with killing and that he is a stealth, character wanting someones death. As the scene continues, Léon disappears into the darkness, creating an even more sinister feeling than the feeling we receive from the low key lighting. Léon also has a silencer on his weapon which means he does not want to reveal himself, the same way he does not want to reveal himself through his outfit.

The film creates the feeling of isolation as most o the shots only contain only one character in the shot, typically a low lit character holding some sort of weapon, which keeps us pondering on who the good guy is and who the bad guy is as each of them have made bad moral decisions in their past. Léon gives off the feeling of a stealth assassin that is paid for his services, as he always seems to have a stern and plain look.