1937, Spain is in the midst of the brutal Spanish Civil War. A "Happy" circus clown is interrupted mid-performance and forcibly recruited by a militia. Still in his costume, he is handed a machete and led into battle against National soldiers, where he single handedly massacres an entire platoon. Fast forward to 1973, the tail end of the Franco regime. Javier, the son of the clown, dreams of following in his father's career footsteps, but has seen too much tragedy in his life-he's simply not funny and is only equipped to play the role of the Sad Clown. He finds work in a circus where he befriends an outlandish cast of characters, but as the Sad Clown he must take the abuse of the brutish Happy Clown Sergio, who humiliates Javier daily in the name of entertainment. It is here that he meets Natalia, a gorgeous acrobat, and abused wife of Sergio. Javier falls deeply in love with Natalia and tries to rescue her from her cruel and violent husband, unleashing Sergio's jealousy. But Natalia is torn between her affection towards Javier and her lust for Sergio.
Review:
The original title of this movie is Balada Triste De Trompeta which is spanish for balad of a sad trompet. The english title is "The Last Circus" that in my opinion has nothing at all to do with this movie, they may as well call it "A circus in a lion's den"... The Greek title was even further from the point of movie, it translates to "The last acrobat of Madrid". So that is why I choose to use the original spanish title.
It took a veeeeeeeery long time till I finaly decided to watch this movie. I knew it was an old social movie and that kind ussually bores me...
Last week I finally watched it and I have to say that I was surprised. This movie has a very strange, even twisted some times, sense of humor, at many scenes I wasn't sure if the humor was intented or I just found it funny. Most of the times the humor was a very short part of a very serious scene, existing just to break the heavy environment. I liked that aspect of the movie very much.
The second thing that I liked about this movie is the very dark and psycho environment it creates. The main hero is surrounded by death his whole life and watching this movie puts you right in the place to understand just a tiny part of how he feels. Also I like crazy, murderous clowns XD
The thing that bothers most people, not me though, is that the movie is too depressing with the exception of a few scenes it drowns the viewer in saddness and pain, so if you want a comedy don't watch this.
i am so exited by this review!! i am going to watch it tonight! and then comment back ;)
ReplyDeleteok, i think that we should be worried that we are the only ones who saw the movie and liked it..
ReplyDeletefirst of all i liked as well the dark and psycho environment it creates. i never in my life liked clowns though and now i don't more!
the movie was good, but in many points it was too much, it was a splatter movie.. if it was shorter it would be more interesting and less tiring. after a point, it was so unrealistic, the police couldn't catch either of the murders, they were killing like crazy everybody.. and the clown was eating (row) animals and living in the woods?? (came on..)
the direction and the idea were very good but they overdone it in many scenes.
also the girl was so stupid (but so pretty).
to sum up, it was a good alternative one time watch..