The Last Circus

THE LAST CIRCUS must cover at least ten different, distinctive styles within its 105 minutes. The film begins with grainy, darkly toned revolutionary times in Spain. Director Álex de la Iglesia's beginning to the story, and each distinctive portion, are each pretty entertaining. In the opening, we meet a couple of circus clowns, one of them wearing a dress and some ghastly make-up. The two clowns' act is interrupted by soldiers, and the practical clown wearing a dress, yells to his son to escape, and run away, while he's given a gun, inducted into the army as they fight opposing invaders. Through some complicated, but intense exchanges, the clown ends up in the mines, and eventually is trampled to death, his dying words a cry for his son to take vengeance. His son, Javier (Carlos Areces), grows up from a nerdy oversized glasses wearing kid into a fat, sad-clown. He finds a circus that looks suitable, but finds himself the toy of Natalia (Carolina Bang), the popular clown's abused wife. These portions are similarly entertaining in contrast to the first part, but they are almost jarringly different, and Iglesia's desire to play with different tones makes for the most uneven of films. Javier's later descent into insanity, burning of his face with acid and irons, doesn't fit with the rest of the film. I never saw any sort of transition that worked, but rather, an alienating frivolity that characterized Iglesia's approach. Besides, when he puts of political allegories next to a guy burning his face off and running around with a machine gun, it's like he's daring us to say that's wrong. But such an approach only comes off as snarky, rather than for the sake of fun, or, really, for the sake of anything but being snarky.

★★ out of Five