| I'm a huge fan of Leon (aka The Professional), but, having just read Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, I pose the question - is Leon simply a loose adaptation of Nabokov's novel? The similarities are all there; for a start Leon is a foreign outsider assimilated into American society with his (admittedly poor to begin with) understanding of English. Then, by chance, he comes into contact with his Lolita, Mathilda (the same age as Dolores Haze in the novel). Eventually, like Nabokov's book, he becomes her sole guardian - and the road trip of the novel is replaced by a rites of passage involving assassin training. Finally, both protagonists (Humbert Humbert and Leon) kill a prominent public figure they believe to have corrupted the life of their young companion - Clare Quilty in Lolita, who takes the girl away from Humbert and attempts to use her in sex games, and Norman Stansfield in Leon, who killed Mathilda's family. The sexual relationship of Lolita is never addressed so explicitly in Leon, but the 'version integrale' does push the film further in this direction. Any thoughts? |