Jaco van Dormael Movies
- 2009
A man close to death ponders the many lives he might have led in this fantasy from director and screenwriter Jaco van Dormael. 117-year-old Nemo Nobody (Jared Leto) is ill and facing his last days as he looks back on his past and a particular crucial moment -- at the age of nine, Nemo's parents divorced, and as his mother (Natasha Little) and father (Rhys Ifans) stood on a train platform, he had to choose who he would go with, and whether he would live in the United States or Great Britain. Either choice would bring with it a wide variety of possibilities regarding the sort of life he would lead, and Nemo imagines nearly all of them, including two different wives -- sweet but emotionally blank Jeanne (Linh-Dan Pham) and lovely but troubled Elise (Sarah Polley) -- and another woman, Anna (Diane Kruger), who he loves but can not marry. But as Nemo considers the many different paths his life could have taken, his memory begins to fail him, and he finds it increasingly difficult to be certain which was his real life and which is a product of his imagination. Mr. Nobody also stars Thomas Byrne as nine-year-old Nemo and Toby Regbo as Nemo in his teenage years. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jared Leto, Diane Kruger, (more)
- 1996
- NR
Two men with seemingly nothing in common become unlikely friends in this drama from France. Harry (Daniel Auteuil) is a salesman working for a large but faceless corporation, where he's become a success at the expense of his personal life. His wife Julie (Miou-Miou), frustrated by his lack of concern for his family, has divorced him, and while he still has visitation rights to his children, he manages to forget when it's his weekend with his daughters, and he neglects to pick them up at the train station. Harry is depressed and nearly suicidal; while driving late one rainy night, he accidentally hits a dog who is walking with Georges (Pascal Duquenne), a personable young man with Down's Syndrome. Georges lives in a mental institution, where he's happy and well cared for, but when several of the other patients leave for a weekend visit, Georges decides that he should leave too, and he sets out to visit his mother. Harry can't bring himself to leave Georges behind, so after burying the dog, he offers to drive him to his mother's home, which becomes the start of a complicated odyssey for the two of them, especially after Harry finds out that Georges' mother is no longer alive. Actor Pascal Duquenne actually does have Down's Syndrome; he and co-star Daniel Auteuil shared the Best Actor award at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Daniel Auteuil, Pascal Duquenne, (more)
- 1992
Maria Garcia (Carmen Maura) is a television journalist and she's about to be a single mother. Her career foremost in her mind, she doesn't slow down even for a minute, despite her pregnancy. She is, however, taking Lamaze classes and is quite competently coping with the romantic attentions of a man she's not very interested in. It's not at all irrelevant that her news beat includes stories on terrorism, the greenhouse effect, pollution and genetic engineering, because when her baby's due date comes and goes, she starts hearing from her infant from in the womb. It is telling her that it and many other babies are refusing to be born into such a horrible world. She learns that this is true, and that the children born through induced labor are dying. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Carmen Maura, Didier Bezace, (more)
- 1991
- PG
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, Rovi
- Starring:
- Michel Bouquet, Jo de Backer, (more)
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