Toto le héros (1991)

Director:

Jaco van Dormael

Writers:

Didier De Neck (collaborator)
Pascal Lonhay (collaborator)

Release Date:

19 June 1991 (France)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Thomas and Alfred were born around the same time; a fire in the nursery had nurses scrambling to save the newborns...

Plot Keywords:

Pilot | Jealousy | Childhood Fantasy | Love Triangle | Surrealism

Awards:

Nominated for BAFTA Film Award. Another 15 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Michel Bouquet	...	Thomas, as an old man
Jo De Backer	...	Thomas, as an adult
Thomas Godet	...	Thomas, as a child
Gisela Uhlen	...	Evelyne as an old woman
Mireille Perrier	...	Evelyne as young woman
Sandrine Blancke	...	Alice
Peter Böhlke	...	Alfred as an old man
Didier Ferney	...	Alfred, as an adult
Hugo Harold Harrison	...	Alfred, as a child
Fabienne Loriaux	...	Thomas' Mother
Klaus Schindler	...	Thomas' Father
Pascal Duquenne	...	Celestin, as an adult
Karim Moussati	...	Celestin, as a child
Didier De Neck	...	Mr. Kant
Christine Smeysters	...	Mrs. Kant

Also Known As:

Totò the Hero
Toto der Held (Germany)

Runtime:

91 min

Country:

France | Belgium | Germany

Language:

French

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:12 | Australia:M | Argentina:16 | Chile:18 | Spain:13 | Sweden:11 | USA:PG-13

Filming Locations:

Baasrode, Dendermonde, Flanders, Belgium

Company:

Canal+

Trivia:

Many of the railway scenes in the movie were shot on a preserved railway line between Dendermonde and Puurs, Belgium.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Zomergasten: (#10.2)" (1997)

Soundtrack:

Boum

In praise of the modernist aspects of Toto

Toto the Hero is one of those rare films that improves with each viewing (and you will want to watch it again and again) there are enough levels going on to satisfy the hardened movie deconstructionist but at the same time the story-telling is engagingly simple and seemingly naive. At the surface level a narrative of lost love, mistaken identity, family tragedy, life/death and tulips. Dig deeper and there is a complex reflexive subtext about language and subject identity that encompasses philosophy, psychoanalysis and the role of the media itself. Joyce, Levi Strauss, Freud and Lacan are cited alongside countless references to cinema and television. Watch the opening of Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard or read the first page of Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man after Toto and you may catch my drift. A truly superb piece of cinema that skillfully manages to avoid the post-modern posturing that condemns many of Van Dormael's contemporaries.