Lack of good storyline.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Cu-Top said it all. Only thing I can add is that it seems to start slowly and, if you have a prejudice against self-absorbed European (especially French) movies, this might suggest just another Celt trying to fellate himself.Instead, it turns out to be a virtually perfect story of self-deception and the choices that back-fire as a result, told at a deliberate pace, and which you care about because we all share some level of that deception.Again, Cu-Top's review hits the mark; take this little gem seriously.Another line.Another line.Another line.Why does IMDb insist on ten lines?

Thomas has a clear memory of being swapped with another baby during a fire when he was a newborn in the hospital.The movie goes back and forth in the life of Thomas as mostly follows the revenge he has planned against the guy who lived his life.All of his life's difficulties and joys seem to originate and be stolen - respectively - by his mortal enemy.As in all of Dormael's stories, there is a moment in childhood where you loose your innocence: this is the moment you understand the world and for your vision of life. This can happen mostly through trauma and so the loss of innocence in this movie happens when Thomas is a newborn.But it also keeps happening at each turn of Thomas' life and at every choice. We can't change who he decided to be.And the life his enemy has lead is one of luxury, love and happiness - or could it be that it is not so much what Thomas thinks? Great soundtrack with the magnificent Trenet singing Boum Boum.In a way that sort of fable that modern french cinema has given us with Amelie but somewhat darker and much more complex and profound.You will laugh and cry. You'll feel like your heart is being squeezed and in the end it's let gone and you feel free with the last scene.

I gave this film a rating of "1" because of the terrible things it contains. There is near-child pornography, an adolescent brother and sister that are in love with each other and take baths together and sleep together (one scene shows the boy licking the girl's arm), the children plotting to burn the neighbor's house down, an older man fantasizing about stuffing a bottle of pills down a nurse's throat, the two sublings smashing a statue of the Virgin Mary, and the film shows a man that has been suffocated, choked, drowned, and shot. If you liked "The Eighth Day," which was written and directed by the same person, you won't like this. It's disgusting and violent and has perverted sexuality.

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!