Balada Triste

This “romantic comedy” set in a circus is impossible not to recommend. Utter madness, The Last Circus will some day be a great cult film. (18/07/2011)

The fury of the first order. The director clearly has traumas from the circus mixed with traumas from modern Spanish history. The film is a very bloody therapy in which famous movie monsters, windy pulp, circus, street theatre and cabaret all fight in a lively group... The result is built on such indescribable foundations without logic and rationality that the only relevant category is entertainment. And that's what The Last Circus brought me, even though it makes sense in a way that stops being funny. Anyway, it's a movie full of fear and hate, full of exaggerated make-up, crazy side trips and even crazier smash-ups. It's a film about love and Spain - paradoxically, the film enticed me with something I can't describe as other than an allergic reaction to normalization. Iglesias's visuals measles from homogenized society in the early 1970s are sympathetic to me, and although I do not have a deeper knowledge of Spanish official culture, something about The Last Circus seemed very purifying even for creatures coming from communist gray. In any case, receiving the Golden Lions had to be conditioned by a pumping shotgun in the hands of Quentin Tarantino, for whom this film is something of a blood brother. (28/03/2011)

A macabre circus that deals fairly with Franco's regime (and Franco himself) through a suicidal deer, an obese naked man fetching things in the woods, a bite, a spinning iron, a heartbroken clown duo with machine guns, gallons of dripping blood, narrative games, references to horror classics and... and these are some of the saner aspects. Before the end, this stylized freakishness stagnates somewhat but the "King Kong-esque" finale excels again. (28/03/2011)

Hahahaha hahaha, come to terms ahead of time with the fact that many of you will simply be unable to keep up with this film. Playing any scene out of context means quite possibly one of your biggest WTF moments of the year, and it's not exactly easy with the context, either. Take Sucker Punch, season it with a good dose of coulrophobia, sprinkle in a ridiculous dose of ultra-violence, hop it up on crack and voila... The Last Circus! While history teachers may be able to use the film to demonstrate the Spanish Civil War, they would probably get arrested. Álex de la Iglesia interests me. PS: personally, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Timur Bekmambetov was the director's consultant. (12/05/2023)

Now, this was a very special experience. The period of the Spanish Civil War is popular with Spanish filmmakers, and I must admit that they mostly do a good job. This was no exception, even though I wasn't always entirely sure if I'd correctly interpreted everything that I saw. Anyway, it was one hell of a blast (literally at times) that sometimes bordered on the absurd, but I had fun, even though I hate clowns (as a source of humor, I mean, I do like Pennywise). (14/04/2021)