Alex De La Iglesia
Ballata dell'odio e dell'amore

LA RECENSIONE

I've never liked clowns. Poor devils forced to make people laugh by humiliating themselves in public. They never amused me; on the contrary, I've always felt a tinge of sadness for them.

This "The Last Circus" is a film that, through the desperate life of a clown, revisits some tragic moments of 20th-century Spain, such as the rise of Franco's fascism, the civil war, and the assassination attempt on President Blanco in 1973. These events serve as a backdrop to a sick, grotesque, and bloody story where love and hate are taken to extremes, verging on madness.

Alex de la Iglesia has crafted a surprising piece of work, full of dark humor, violence, and maniacal romance; a very unique work that is extremely difficult to place within a specific genre. War, dark comedy, psychotic thriller, and drama coexist perfectly in this film. What holds it all together is brutality: everything is excessive and exaggerated, a true cannibalism of images.

A love story like "Beauty and the Beast," only here, there are two beasts: Javier, the "sad clown," shy and introverted, completely unable to make people laugh; and Sergio, the "funny clown," beloved by children but domineering and violent once the red nose is removed. The object of desire is the stunning Natalia, a sweet and slutty acrobat, a Virgin Mary in need of an angel of death.

I won't add anything else about the plot; I'll just say that there are many memorable moments, with at least a couple of anthology scenes: the surreal initial guerrilla scene in which the protagonist is a machete-wielding clown; and the dramatic finale, a disturbing crescendo of tears and laughter between two disfigured madmen.

A traveling madhouse of freaks, expanding from a colorful tent to all of Spain, all of Europe, all of humanity.

A circus of crazies, capable of love and destruction.                                                           

To love death and hate life.

A circus of crazies.

Us.