Analysis of 'Léon: The Professional' | Why did Léon grow a houseplant? [Teacher, what was that all about?]

The meaning of "that scene" that had been bothering me ever since I watched the movie. "Cinema Sensei" (55), a man who has seen every movie, and "Tok" (19), a university student from the streaming generation, dig deep into a single question.

🎤 Tok: Sensei. Léon is the ultimate hitman, but he takes such incredible care of that houseplant, doesn't he? Putting it in the sun every day, wiping its leaves. What was that all about?

🎬 Cinema Sensei: That plant is Léon himself. Léon has no home. He has no furniture. He lives in a room where he can flee at any moment, with nothing but a single potted plant. That plant has "no roots in the soil." It lives only within the pot. It's the same as Léon, isn't it?

🎤 Tok: ...Oh. So, a man who couldn't put down roots anywhere kept the only thing by his side that also couldn't put down roots?

🎬 Cinema Sensei: Exactly. Léon can't read, has no friends, and has never had a real connection with anyone in his life. That plant was his only family. He was a man who only knew how to "cherish someone" by taking care of it.

🎤 Tok: Does that mean—it changed when he met Mathilda?

🎬 Cinema Sensei: It did. That's why the ending is so powerful. After Léon dies, Mathilda will plant that houseplant in the soil of the school garden. She takes it out of the pot and lets it put down roots in the earth for the first time. That is the scene where she carries on Léon's life.The life of a man who could never put down roots anywhere has finally taken root somewhere.In those few seconds, Luc Besson completed the life of a hitman.

🎤 Tok: ...Sensei, I was crying during that scene, and now I understand why.

🎬 Cinema Sensei: Yes, that plant was a metaphor for Léon's soul from beginning to end.

🎤 Tok: But Sensei, this is just your interpretation, right? Aren't there other ways to look at it?

🎬 Cinema Sensei: There are indeed. Another reading is that the plant was "the last remaining fragment of the human part left inside Léon." It's the interpretation that a man who had killed his emotions as a hitman was barely able to remain human just by taking care of the plant. Neither is wrong. If you have a reading that you felt when you watched it, that is the correct answer for you.

👉 We picked up one scene from this movie: [The moment when movies and life overlap] Analysis of 'Léon: The Professional' | Why did Mathilda keep sitting in the hallway?—Stagnation is the time when the soul waits for the next door