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

film director A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. The director has a key role in choosing the cast members, pr ...

and

screenwriter A screenplay writer (also called screenwriter, scriptwriter, scribe or scenarist) is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media, such as films, television programs and video games, are based. ...

Jaco Van Dormael. 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 ...

in 1991, and the

César Award for Best Foreign Film This is the list of winners and nominees of the César Award for Best Foreign Film (french: César du meilleur film étranger). Winners and nominees 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2020s Awards by nation Notes See also *Lumières A ...

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

Thomas Godet Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the Ap ...

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 Sandrine Blancke (born 6 November 1978) is a Belgium French actress. She started her acting career as a child actor at the age of 13 in the 1991 film '' Toto le héros''. She was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the 1st Magritte Awards ...

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 Peter may refer to: People * List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Peter (given name) ** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church * Peter (surname), a su ...

as Alfred (old man) *

Didier Ferney __NOTOC__ Didier is a French masculine given name and surname common throughout the Romance languages. It comes from the Ancient Roman names Didius and Desiderius. During the 5th century AD, with the Christianisation of ancient pagan names, it h ...

as Alfred (adult) *

Hugo Harold Harrison Hugo or HUGO may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Hugo'' (film), a 2011 film directed by Martin Scorsese * Hugo Award, a science fiction and fantasy award named after Hugo Gernsback * Hugo (franchise), a children's media franchise based on a ...

as Alfred (child) *

Fabienne Loriaux Fabienne is a feminine French and English given name. Notable people with the name include: * Fabienne André (born 1996), British athlete * Fabienne Dufour (born 1981), Belgian swimmer * Fabienne Feraez (born 1976), Beninese sprinter * Fabienne ...

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 Kareem (alternatively spelled Karim or Kerim) ( ar, کریم) is a common given name and surname of Arabic origin that means "generous", "noble", "honorable". It is also one of the Names of God in Islam in the Quran. Given name Karim * Karim A ...

as Celestin (child) *

Didier De Neck __NOTOC__ Didier is a French masculine given name and surname common throughout the Romance languages. It comes from the Ancient Roman names Didius and Desiderius. During the 5th century AD, with the Christianisation of ancient pagan names, it h ...

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 Philippe "Bouli" Lanners (born 20 May 1965) is a Belgian actor, author and film director. His film '' The Giants'' was nominated for twelve Magritte Awards, winning five, including Best Film and Best Director. Biography Lanners was born on 2 ...

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, 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 Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

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 Wan ...

, 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

{{DEFAULTSORT:Toto Le Heros 1991 films Belgian comedy-drama films Best Foreign Film César Award winners European Film Awards winners (films) 1990s French-language films Films directed by Jaco Van Dormael Films shot in Brussels Caméra d'Or winners 1991 directorial debut films French-language Belgian films