Benshi's review of Léon's animated stories :
Some young film buffs may have already encountered the characters from the land of King Balthazar. These four short films came originally from episodes of a television series made by the Folimage studio. From 2008 to 2012 these animated delights also featured in four programmes that ran in cinemas: 1, 2, 3… Leon !, 4, 5, 6… Gingerbread Molly, 7, 8, 9…Bonifacio, and 10, 11, 12… Poppety the hedgehog. The DVD edition brings the four seasons of Leon together for the first time, and what a treat it is!
Dive into an enlightened medieval tale, enter the belly of the world “where stories are born” … Here you will find ogres, unicorns and magic apples, and Bonifacio will reveal the secrets behind them! The music, sets, costumes, village feasts and legends of yore will carry you into a fantasy-filled land of the Middle Ages where stories contain still more stories.
Here there are heroes with deep characters, finely crafted identities that eschew simplistic division into one category or another. Leon, the “bear head”, is brave but also gets into fights with his adoptive parents. Molly is far from a passive princess and has her father the king wrapped around her finger. Poppety and Melody form a duo of irresistibly grumpy hedgehogs with sweet hearts. As for Bonifacio, the mischief-making storyteller with a fine line in lying and a lust for power, he is a vital piece of the puzzle. Even if he is forever stirring up trouble, life in the village would be very dull without him. So it’s a real delight to follow how things unfold with these characters and the ties they weave with each other as the seasons go by. The excellent voiceovers make the experience all the more convincing and enjoyable for viewers.
Big themes such as adoption, difference, divorce, bereavement, secrets, love and friendship are handled with care. The tempo of the adventures is perfectly pitched between intense quests (like when rescuing the princess from the clutches of the ogre) and moments of levity (like the first night the friends camp out). The high-quality score plays a big role in balancing viewers’ emotions. Moreover, the humour is kept up all throughout the saga, never getting tired.
And the film is beautiful. The puppet animation is smooth and the aesthetics very original and meticulously detailed, the overall effect enhanced by clever use of colours, textures and composition. This is a collection of cheery and zesty films that are rendered like a big show, with regular changes of sets, and we are kept on the edges of our seats throughout. Thanks to all this, there’s no question that kids now have a high-quality mini-series and it would be a pity for them to miss out on it!
