IMDb > Toto le héros (1991)
Toto le héros
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Toto le héros (1991) More at IMDbPro »


Overview

User Rating:
7.8/10   1,963 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?

Down 2% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.

Director:

Jaco van Dormael

Writers:

Didier De Neck (collaborator)
Pascal Lonhay (collaborator)
more

Contact:

View company contact information for Toto le héros on IMDbPro.

Release Date:

19 June 1991 (France) more

Genre:

Drama more

Plot:

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

Awards:

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

NewsDesk:

Tiff Picks 09: Jaco Van Dormael's Mr. Nobody
 (From ioncinema. 7 September 2009)

User Comments:

The Genius of Small Things more (18 total)


Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)
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
more
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Additional Details

Also Known As:

Totò the Hero
Toto der Held (Germany)
more

Runtime:

91 min

Language:

French

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1 more

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Canal+ more


Fun Stuff

Trivia:

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

Movie Connections:

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

Soundtrack:

Boum more


FAQ

This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.
13 out of 13 people found the following comment useful.
The Genius of Small Things, 3 August 2001
Author: David Allison from Leeds, West Yorkshire, England

Jaco van Dormael, I love you. When I first saw this film in a dilapidated arts cinema in Cambridge on a cold winter's night, I wasn't expecting much. The only review I'd read was mildly sniffy. It was French, it was about la condition humaine. I thought it'd be a reasonable way to pass a couple of hours.

When I emerged from that dark pit of a cinema, I felt, at least for a while, as if my eyesight had been transformed. As we walked back to my friend's flat, I became fixated on one thing after another - the rain upon the cobbles, the light on the church, the darkness of the sky - I felt about five years old all over again. Since then, this film has never been out of my top five. And probably never will.

That is not say it's perfect. It's message is perhaps a little too bleak for my liking, and it does indulge itself in the precept that life it utterly meaningless. But how the visuals of the film contradict that sentiment! Every shot filled with colour, with life, with imagination.

In a way, Toto is an old-fashioned film - a thriller in the Third Man/Citizen Kane mold - a complex story unfolding in a semi-linear fashion, in this case throughout one man's whole life. Dour realism this certainly ain't. A wonderfully naive 40s (?) style chanson reappears, as the adult 'Van Chickensoup' watches his dead father sing from the back of a truck in front of him. Flowers sway in time to the song. The child truly believes that his father met his mother by landing in the garden from a parachute. Scene after scene of joyful play follow each other.

But this is no art-house foppery. This is a tight, mean, well-constructed tale about the feeling that dogs us all - is this all life is? Could I have been happier as someone else? Are they happier than me? Am I lucky or unlucky? And most importantly, this: Why, when life seems so hard at times, can we find so much joy in small things, in a flower, or a kiss, or crazy weather, or new clothes?

Forget the French subtitles, a fact that seems to put off so many North American and British viewers, forget the 'art-house' tag. I own this film and have shown it to scores of friends, all of whom have walked away astonished at its vision. I assure you that you will love this film.

It's alright, you don't have to thank me, spreading the word is enough. ;-) Watch it today! And then watch the Eighth Day, Van Dormael's astonishing second feature.

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Message Boards

Discuss this movie with other users on IMDb message board for Toto le héros (1991)
Recent Posts (updated daily)User
Beautiful, Sublime, Transcendent, Poetic, Tragic, Romantic, Amazing veil_of_evil
Why does the grown up Thomas leave Evelyne? piet-grut
Will we ever see a new movie by director Van Dormael? ? Nijn1978
dvd toto le heros bamie_one
Time setting of this movie kedem524
that song yoshi_1554
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