Toto the Hero

(1991)

★ 7.1 IMDb · 127 votes

Genres: Drama, Comedy, Fantasy

Year: 1991

Runtime: 88 мин

Country: Belgium, France

Director: Jaco Van Dormael

Cast: Мишель Буке, Thomas Godet, Gisela Uhlen, Jo De Backer, Mireille Perrier, Sandrine Blancke, Peter Böhlke, Didier Ferney, Hugo Harold-Harrison, Pascal Duquenne

Plot

80-year-old Thomas recounts his childhood and middle age through a series of flashbacks and dream sequences. Thomas believes he’s been taken away from a better life at birth; following a hospital fire, he vividly recalls being swapped with another new-born, and subsequently grows up in a poorer neighbouring household.

Thomas and Alfred were born around the same time; a fire in the nursery had nurses scrambling to save the newborns. Because he felt that he deserved Alfred's good fortune at being born into a wealthy family, Thomas conceives the idea that he and Alfred were switched at birth, and he can't help seeing that his unhappiness should be Alfred's, from the loss of his sister to his inability to have a relationship with the woman Evelyne. So, as his life is ending, he formulates a plan of revenge against his bitter enemy, his lifetime adversary, the man who stole his existence.