Mad Circus - Eine Ballade von Liebe und Tod

Greetings again from the darkness. Here's hoping I don't get booted from proper society for admitting a strange fascination and enjoyment from the latest directorial effort by Spanish cult favorite Alex de la Iglesia. The film is assembled with unequal parts: political parody, black comedy, dark horror, bizarre action and an even more bizarre love triangle. All of that and some of the freakiest clowns you will ever see! I am not really familiar with Mr. De La Torre's previous work but evidently he has quite a following in Spain, though he has found extremely limited success in the U.S. with The Day of the Beast. Neither am I an historical expert on the Spanish Civil War or the regime of Generalissimo Francisco Franco, both of which are targets of the director's true feelings. Still, the movie is such that it kept me engaged and even enthralled the entire time ... especially in Act I.

The film begins in 1937 when a faction of the Republican Army crash a kids' circus performance and force the performers to join in the crusade. One of the clowns leaves behind a young son as he picks up a machete and destroys a platoon almost single handedly - while still in women's clown costume! It is a visual I have yet to erase from my memory.

Forward to 1943 and the clown is forced into servitude constructing the famed Valley of the Fallen. His son tracks him down and is given "revenge" as the only redemptive action by his father. Flash forward to 1973 and the young boy is seen joining a traveling circus as the "sad clown". This circus troupe is run by the ruthless and sadistic "funny clown" who is clearly the filmmakers representation of Franco. The foreshadowing scene comes in the initial meeting between the two clowns as 'funny' tells 'sad' if he weren't a clown, he'd be a murderer. "Sad" responds "me too". Let the mayhem begin! The rivalry and violence escalates as Javier, the sad clown, is lead on and falls for the acrobatic girlfriend of Sergio, the funny clown. As the story moves forward both Javier and Sergio become more grotesque and violent in their attempts to capture Natalia the acrobat. It all ends with a breathtaking climb and operatic duel atop the memorial in the Valley of the Fallen.

There is no way to describe the trip from machete clown to the tragic dance atop the cross. It is a mash-up of Inglorious Basterds, Freaks, Machete and Phantom of the Opera. Additionally, there are countless homages to classic films through the years and a nearly operatic feel to the story and some scenes. Singer Raphael's version of "Ballad of the Sad Trumpet" plays a role, as does a crumpled trumpet. I certainly see this one becoming a regular on the midnight movie circuit, and rightfully so. It has everything a viewer could possibly want ... provided they are in a mindless stupor and looking for the best available violent clown movie currently showing!

I saw this film as part of the "Imagine" film festival 2011 in Amsterdam. It made a promising start with a good exposition of the main characters involved, the setting in which they lived (circus, civil war, etc), and personal motives behind dramatic developments later on. Actors did a great job, pictures well shot, and a perfectly fitting musical score supported the events on screen. I was fully in the mood to watch the remainder of a perfect movie. All necessary ingredients were there.

However, after an hour my appreciation changed 180 degrees. There were too many improbable situations, unrealistic events, and several inconsistencies in the story line. Apart from that, the overload of self inflicted injuries and mutual violence started to annoy me. Equally dramatic developments might have been possible with much less blood. On top of that, the finale disappointed grossly. It was obviously intended to be spectacular, but it completely failed in that respect. I did not expect a happy ending for most of the main characters, but such a massive amount of deaths and severe injuries is uncalled for.

When leaving the theater, I nevertheless gave a "satisfactory" score for the public prize competition, compensating the bad parts in the last ¾ hour with the good parts that made up the first hour. These film makers can do it, apparently, when they avoid their inclination to impress us with spectacular settings and special effects. I certainly hope they will in their next production.

After the really disappointing "Oxford murders", Álex de la Iglesia returns with not only his best film to date, but with one of the best films in the last years. "Balada Triste de Trompeta" is a romantic-over the top-violent melodrama which mixes Tarantino, Hitchcock, Fellini, Todd Browning and of course it also has a lot of previous Álex de la Iglesia films like "Acción Mutante" or "El día de la bestia". Two men, one good and one bad, fighting for the love of a beautiful blonde trapeze artist (the gorgeous Carolina Bang) in a downward spiral of love and madness that also serves as a historical recount of the last 75 years of Spanish history.

A magic tale of terror, dark humour and tragedy!! I think that this film is like a mix of Rodrigues, Jarmush and Kusturica... gripping and strong whilst dark, random and ghastly at the same time. Romantic and disgusting in one film. de la Iglesia beautifully makes the whole film look like a circus performance with all characters exaggerated to the point that even Franco looks like a clown. Though I appreciate that this film is probably not for everyone, I think that it's an original and interesting portrayal of, amongst other things, love and war during horrors of Spanish civil war - an interesting contrast to del Toro's "El Labiirinto del Fauno"!

The first reaction I had to this film was - "an overkill". So much gore and blood in a small love triangle story, seemed excessive. But my very next thought was, I must be missing something. And as I went over the perfectly designed gory details of the movie one more time in my mind I realized I was watching a surreal fable on the fate of Spain from the Spanish civil war onward. The only proof of that claim I can give here without adding a spoiler is the fact that the opening scene of the film takes place in 1937 while most of the story happens on 1973, but there's no logical base for such a big time gap, the only reason these two dates were chosen is because the second is the mirror image of the first, and they both fit into the historic background necessary for the story.

As a fable, we have all the right ingredients of a fable in, the characters may be slightly flat, since their symbolic value is more important than their personality but the actors make it work anyhow.

So if your stomach can take gore and blood in quantities that would suit a horror movie, and you're interested in an original point of view on the destiny of Spain in the 20th century - it's definitely worth seeing