George
T. Edison (Powers Boothe) toils in his elaborate laboratory – complete
with bubbling beakers and whistling air pumps – working diligently on
his new invention. Although brilliant, he is decidedly odd. As the result of
a childhood train accident, he is forced to hear with his teeth, so he listens
to his phonograph records by gnawing on its metal horn. His latest discovery
is sure to be his finest moment, but in his haste to top his own legend, Edison
endangers those closest to him and the worst happens: his son Leo (Gregory Smith)
is electrified, rendering him unable to touch anyone for the rest of his life.
After ten years with no friends, let alone physical contact, Leo finds his salvation
in Zella (Carly Pope), the first person to see past his voltaic facade.
Set in a surreal nineteenth-century fantasy world called Pickerton Park, Edison
& Leo is made all the more extraordinary by the fact that it is an animated
film. Using dynamic stop-motion animation, director Neil Burns and a team of
animators have crafted a noirish, gothic fairy tale based on a story by George
Toles, Guy Maddin's long-time screenwriting partner. It comes replete with Oedipal
revenge, mysterious First Nations tribes and a robotic dog named Pickle. The
sinister, striking landscape is matched by stunning character designs, including
Edison's high, dual-tipped coif and large, slightly crazed eyes. Edison &
Leo never fails to surprise, and at times its realism is unnerving, with more
violence and disturbing moments than typically found in North American animation.
A film about theft in many forms – cultural, personal and spiritual –
Edison & Leo is a groundbreaking achievement both for its visual splendour
and its mature thematic content. A culmination of years of work and decades
of Canadian animation history, this is a completely original achievement that
extends the genre to its boundaries, and then pushes past them.
Jesse Wente
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Edison
& Leo (2008)
Director: Neil Burns
Writers: George Toles, Daegan Fryklind
Producers: Dean english, Karen Powell, Dave Valleau
Co-producer: Marc Stephenson
Director: Neil Burns
Writers: George Toles, Daegan Fryklind
Producers: Dean english, Karen Powell, Dave Valleau
Co-producer: Marc Stephenson
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