''Toto the Hero'' (french: Toto le héros) is a 1991 Belgian film (co-produced with France and Germany) by Belgian film director and screenwriter

Jaco Van Dormael Jaco Van Dormael (born 9 February 1957) is a Belgian film director, screenwriter and playwright. His films especially focus on a respectful and sympathetic portrayal of people with mental and physical disabilities. Van Dormael spent his childho ...

. It won the

Caméra d'Or The Caméra d'Or ("''Golden Camera''") is an award of the Cannes Film Festival for the best first feature film presented in one of the Cannes' selections (Official Selection, Directors' Fortnight The Directors' Fortnight (french: Quinzaine des ...

award at the

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...

in 1991, and the César Award for Best Foreign Film in 1992. The film was selected as the Belgian entry for the

Best Foreign Language Film This is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow film awards, including those presented by various film, festivals, and people's awards. Best Actor/Best Actress *See Best Actor#Film awards, Best Actress#F ...

at the

64th Academy Awards The 64th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 1991 in the United States and took place on March 30, 1992, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles beg ...

, but was not accepted as a nominee.

Plot

Ostensibly set in the near future, the film tells the life story of an elderly man named Thomas Van Hasebroeck (who has dubbed himself Toto, after a childhood fantasy), looking back on his ordinary, apparently uneventful life in a complex mosaic of flashbacks, interspersed with

fantasies Fantasy is a genre of fiction. Fantasy, Fantasie, or Fantasies may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Fantasia (music), a free-form musical composition * ''Fantasie'' (Widmann), a 1993 composition for solo clarinet by Jörg Widmann * ...

about how events might have turned out differently. It is not always possible to tell the difference between embellished or manufactured memories and fantasies, as Thomas is a very

unreliable narrator An unreliable narrator is a narrator whose credibility is compromised. They can be found in fiction and film, and range from children to mature characters. The term was coined in 1961 by Wayne C. Booth in ''The Rhetoric of Fiction''. While unr ...

, but some scenes (such as the narrative thread that features Toto as a

secret agent Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangib ...

) are definitely fantasized. Thomas firmly believes his life to have been "stolen" from him by Alfred Kant, born at the same time as Thomas, who Thomas believes was inadvertently switched with himself as a baby (characteristically, the film remains ambiguous as to whether this substitution ever actually happened, with Thomas' only substantiation being his apparent vivid memory of the day he was born). Thomas' jealousy of Alfred has overshadowed all his life, often with tragic consequences for his loved ones, and he is plotting revenge. Throughout most of the film, his intended revenge takes the shape of a plot to kill Alfred, but in the end Thomas finds a more creative and surprising way to "take back" his life.

Cast

Michel Bouquet Michel Bouquet (6 November 1925 – 13 April 2022) was a French stage and film actor. He appeared in more than 100 films from 1947 to 2020. He won the Best Actor European Film Award for ''Toto the Hero'' in 1991 and two Best Actor Césars for ...

as Thomas (old man) * Jo De Backer as Thomas (adult) * Thomas Godet as Thomas (child) *

Gisela Uhlen Gisela Uhlen (16 May 1919 – 16 January 2007) was a German film actress and occasional screen writer. Biography Uhlen was born Gisela Friedlinde Schreck (German national library entry) in Leipzig, Germany as fourth child of Luise Frieda and ...

as Evelyne (old woman) *

Mireille Perrier Mireille Perrier (born 14 November 1959) is a French actress and stage director. Career She debut in theater with the ''Compagnie du Hasard'' in 1977, where she remained a member for two years. Her first starring role was in Leos Carax's '' ...

as Evelyne (young woman) * Sandrine Blancke as Alice *

Michel Robin Michel Robin (13 November 1930 – 18 November 2020) was a French film, stage, and television actor. A sociétaire of the Comédie-Française since 1996, he also appeared in 120 films from 1966 to 2018. He won several awards for his acting, ...

as Alfred (old's voice) * Peter Böhlke as Alfred (old man) * Didier Ferney as Alfred (adult) * Hugo Harold Harrison as Alfred (child) *

Fabienne Loriaux Fabienne is a feminine French and English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, o ...

as Thomas' Mother *

Klaus Schindler Klaus is a German, Dutch and Scandinavian given name and surname. It originated as a short form of Nikolaus, a German form of the Greek given name Nicholas. Notable persons whose family name is Klaus * Billy Klaus (1928–2006), American baseba ...

as Thomas' Father * Pascal Duquenne as Celestin (adult) * Karim Moussati as Celestin (child) * Didier De Neck as Mr. Kant *

Christine Smeysters Christine may refer to: People * Christine (name), a female given name Film * Christine (1958 film), ''Christine'' (1958 film), based on Schnitzler's play ''Liebelei'' * Christine (1983 film), ''Christine'' (1983 film), based on King's novel ...

as Mrs. Kant * Jo Deseure as Sales Woman * Bouli Lanners as Gangster

Release

The film is available on DVD in the UK and mainland Europe. It was released on Blu-Ray in the UK and United States in August 2020 by

Arrow Academy Arrow Films is a British independent film distributor and restorer specialising in world cinema, arthouse, horror and classic films. It sells Ultra HD Blu-rays, Blu-rays and DVDs online, and also operates its own subscription video on-dema ...

, with documentaries on the making of the film ('Memories of Hero') and on

François Schuiten François Schuiten (; born 26 April 1956) is a Belgian comic book artist. He is best known for drawing the series '' Les Cités Obscures''. Biography François Schuiten was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1956.De Weyer, Geert (2005). "François Sc ...

('François Schuiten, Architect of an Unfinished Dream').

Reception

Vincent Canby Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who served as the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in ...

gave the film an enthusiastic review in ''The New York Times'', calling it "an enormously witty, bittersweet comedy" that "is both shocking and elegiacal." He wrote that "the film has the density of a fine short story, written by a master who somehow manages to create a novel-sized world through an uncanny command of ellipsis" and praised "Van Dormael's extraordinary gift for the simultaneous expression of utterly contradictory emotions." ''Variety'' described the film as "a winning blend of kid's fantasy and adult comedy that's as fresh as a hot croissant." ''Time Out'' called it "an immensely vibrant, inventive, compassionate movie", and added that though Van Dormael has "an engagingly witty eye for the absurd", he has rooted his film "in ''emotional'' reality, so that Thomas' life, loves, desires and anxieties take on great poignancy." Roger Ebert admitted it was "an interesting film", and remarked that he would have liked it more "if it had been more bitter and unforgiving; if someone like Bunuel had directed it". On

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 91%, based on 11 reviews, and an average rating of 7.7/10.

References

External links

*
TOTO LES HEROS
at