Former circus performer Jaco Van Dormael made his feature-film directing bow with the Belgian/French/German coproduction Toto Le Héros. The title character is an fictional supersecret agent, idolized by a young boy named Thomas. The lad aspires to become Toto when he grows up; but thanks to a kaleidoscope of flashbacks and flashforwards, we know that he'll end up ordinary and unfulfilled. The film hopscotches between the Three Ages of Thomas: wide-eyed youngster, mediocrity-mired adult, bitter old man. The elder Thomas has never gotten over his childhood traumas and hatreds. He was always jealous of his wealthy boyhood friend Alfred, fantasizing that he and his chum were switched at birth. At the end, the aged Thomas escapes from a senior citizens' home -- an act which leads to Fate dealing its final ironic blow. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review by All Movie Guide
All Movie Guide
liked it.
Distorted, obsessive, and oddly whimsical, Jaco van Dormael's first feature, Toto le Héros, proved a sweeping hit in the European Union, at film festivals and box office alike. Elderly protagonist Thomas van Hasebroeck (
Michel Bouquet) wrestles alternately with his bitter, illogical conviction that he and the rich neighbor boy were switched at birth and his longing for his own idyllic childhood. The song "Boum!" by famed French crooner Charles Trenet continually recurs as an anthem to this nostalgia, a sort of emblem for the security and warmth of Thomas' family. Tempering the potential mawkishness of a family romance writ large are absurd fantasy scenes featuring Thomas as the cunning secret agent who undoes the mishaps -- great and small -- that have befallen him. Melancholic middle-aged Thomas, crafty old Thomas, and wistful child Thomas assist in illustrating the losses and ensuing nostalgia that lead to the last and ultimate identity switch that returns them all to their Eden. The innovative camera work, evident throughout the entire film, is most spectacular at the end, as Thomas resolves his lifelong discontent and is literally transformed in the process. Despite a rather unlikely synthesis of character doubles and coincidences, Toto le Héros delivers a tactile and thoroughly satisfying tribute to nostalgia. ~ Tiffany DeVos, All Movie Guide