Toto le héros

Take a deep breath... and dive... The movie is about to take you in a journey trough an extraordinary life... Not very overwhelming, one might say... but the story of "Toto le héros" is an unpredictable tale about a man who always thought he was nobody, and found at the very end of his life, that he was, in fact, a hero...

The very simple storyline is a sketch, for director Jaco Van Dormael, to elaborate a complex visual narration. Since we follow the main character, Toto, throughout his whole life, the movie is full of "time games". Van Dormael uses flash-back and leap in time to get away from a simple linearity. The aproach to dreams is very similar to Terry Gilliam's that we've seen in "Brazil" and "12 Monkeys".

"Toto le héros" is a touching film that will please the movie critics as well as the common viewers.

It is a chef-d'oeuvre...

Thomas, an elderly man lives in an old people's home. He's always been persuaded that he has been inverted with another baby called Alfred, during a fire at the maternity hospital. It means that he should have been Alfred, a wealthy and rough boy, cherished by his parents who fell in love with Thomas' sister, Alice. When he's a grown-up, he'll become a brilliant businessman whereas Thomas, him, will only live a dull and mournful life: his father will die early, he'll become a poor surveyor and when he feels love for a woman called Evelyne who looks like his late sister, Alice, he'll feel betrayed because Evelyne is Alfred's wife! His only way to escape from a destiny that is not the right one is to fancy himself as a secret agent (Toto le héros). So, in the old people's home, Thomas's got a sole idea: killing the "usurpator". Will he succeed in? For his first film, Jaco Van Doarmel showed cleverness, originality and talent. The movie is very close to Etienne Chatiliez's movie: "life is a long quiet river" but in this movie, everybody knew that the two babies had been voluntarily inverted and in Doarmel's film, Thomas remains the only one to be persuaed of being inverted. One of the feats of the film is that it never asserts this hypothesis. We see the fire but we don't know if the intervertion really happened... The movie works like a puzzle as Thomas's thoughts and memories pass by and it links several characters, in different places, at different times. It enables to reconstruct Thomas' bitter life. In parallel, you never lose the thread of the plot (Thomas aims at avenging himself against the one who stole his life). The film abounds in visual brainwaves and is very well served by a watertight screenplay. Moreover, there's an amazing contrast between Thomas's bitter life and Alfred's one (which would be Thomas's real life) that is cherished and successful. But, in the end, Alfred isn't as dreadful as he seems, because I noticed that when he was old, he seemed upset. He's probably marked by Evelyne's departure and don't forget that he's tracked down by terrorists. Always right and agile, the movie, sometimes, succeeds in creating touching moments( when Thomas discovers that Thomas's wife is Evelyne, the woman he loves). At last, Michel Bouquet is excellent in his role of tormented and disillusioned man. Like "eraserhead" by David Lynch, in another register, "Toto le héros" rank among the movies that you must see rather than telling it because it can be seen on several levels.

This movie is sheer visual poetry. Although it is in subtitles and I don't speak a lick of French, I found myself not needing to read the subtitles as the visuals told the entire story. This is rather impressive, as the story is very complicated. It tells the tale of one man's life by interweaving four different elements of his life: Childhood, Middle-Age, Old-Age, and a Film Noir Fantasy World. To give it even more of a chance of being confusing, these elements are not shown chronologically. However, "Toto..." is not confusing at all. It pulls off this complicated plot beautifully. This movie truly is a Modern Day Classic!! DVD? When? Criterion Edition!

Thomas is a bitter old man who feels he has been cheated out of the life that was rightly his because he and another boy were switched at birth during a fire at the hospital. Alfred, the other boy, lives a life of privilege and becomes rich. Thomas is jealous. But in another sense Thomas needs to believe that he was switched because he falls in love with his sister Alice. If he really was switched, they are not related.

This is just one of the ironic witticisms spun out by Jaco van Dormael, who wrote and directed this striking and totally original bit of life triumphant. Veteran French actor Michel Bouquet plays Thomas as an old man, sneaking cigarettes in the old folks home, reliving his memories, plotting his revenge. Jo De Backer plays Thomas as a slightly nerdish young man, consumed by the loss of his beloved sister in a fire when she was about eleven or twelve. One day by accident he spots a woman who reminds him of his sister. He follows her, they fall in love, and it turns out she is married to Alfred! Thomas Godet plays the little boy Thomas with charm and a touching vulnerability. He is picked on and bullied by Alfred and his friends who taunt him with, "van Chickensoup!" (I wonder if the French Academie approves of this vulgar Anglais.) Sandrine Blancke plays Thomas's cute and impish older sister. Mireille Perrier plays Evelyne, who is the woman who reminds Thomas of his sister.

In a sense this is a romantic comedy, but be warned that in the French cinema a hint of incest is seldom looked on as shocking, rather as something almost akin to nostalgia. And certainly every woman should have a lover and every man a mistress. In another sense this is an art film that plays with time, using both flashbacks and flash forwards to present a story filled with spooky coincidences, punctuated with fantasy and a kind of naturalistic glorification of life epitomized in the catchy tune, "Boom!" that weaves its way in and out of the story, a tune you might have trouble getting out of your head, so be forewarned. ("Boom! When your heart goes boom! It's love, love, love!" written and performed by Charles Trenet.) There is also as aspect of sentimentality, especially in the resolution, that provides a sweet contrast with the naturalistic pathos. When the words that Alice spoke as a child is reprised by Evelyne (although she could not have known what Alice had said) we are delighted, and Thomas is a little rattled.. ("Do you like my hands?" she asks, holding them up. "Which hand do you prefer?")

The bitter old man learns that he really had the better of it all along (and so he does somewhat the opposite of what he had intended) and indeed we in the audience realize that how we might feel about life, looking back on it, might really just depend on how we choose to feel about it. Dormael's message seems to be that love makes life worth living. We are left with the sense that there is a time for love, and that time passes, and we have to accept that and celebrate the memory.

Best scene: Ten-year-old Thomas sees his perhaps 11-year-old sister rising out of the bath tub. (We see only his widening eyes; this is a discreet movie.) He says, "I...didn't know you had breasts." She replies (deadpanning the pride of a pre-adolescence girl), "I thought you'd read about them in the newspapers."

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)

Although I'm from Belgium I don't consider myself as biased to review Toto Le Héros. Jaco Van Dormael is a great director and Toto Le Héros was his first movie that got international attention, and for a good reason. The story is about a man holding a lifetime grudge, his life is only focussed on his neighbors success which he can't get over it. It's a simple story that goes back an forth in the future, past and present, beautifully narrated by Michel Bouquet that has an enjoyable voice to listen to. The acting of the whole cast is on top, from the youngest to the eldest they all gave a very good performance. Jaco Van Dormael will later have another huge movie that was nominated for a Golden Globe, Le Huitième Jour, where he again gave the autistic actor Pascal Duquenne a chance to show he can act, only this time as the major character. Jaco Van Dormael doesn't make tons of movies, but he makes significant ones. Toto The Hero is one of the movies that put Belgium on the map for cinema. Good movie that will please most of his audience.