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Released by: Magnolia Films
Released on: October 18, 2011.
Director: Alex de la Iglesia
Cast: Carlos Areces, Antonio de la Torre, Carolina Bang, Enrique Villen
Year: 2011
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The Movie:
Alex de la Iglesia's The Last Circus has been getting a lot of hype lately thanks to some successful festival screenings and in a rare case of truth in advertising, it's one of those movies that is actually completely deserving of all of the accolades that it has received. If it isn't quite a masterpiece it's a viciously creative and original work of art that uses all of the advantages that digital moviemaking offers without taking the shortcuts that the format also provides.
When the story begins during the Spanish civil war, a troop of Spanish soldiers burst into a circus just as the clowns are in the middle of their performance. They force the audience out and, at gun point, insist that the clowns help them fit the rebels. With little room to argue, the clowns agree, with one solider noting 'A giant clown with a machete? You'll scare the shit out of them.' That giant clown is Andres (Enrique Villen), and when Franco's forces wind up winning the war, he is put in prison for his actions but not before he teaches his son, Javier, the importance of the art of clowning and of revenge.
After this intense and unusual opening scene, we travel forward in time to the 1970s where we meet an adult Javier (Carlos Areces) who is 'the sad clown' in a travelling circus where he performs opposite the circus' main attraction, a 'happy clown' named Sergio (Antonio de la Torre). Sergio is involved with the circus' beautiful trapeze artist, Natalia (Carolina Bang), though he's abusive to her so it's not so surprising when she takes a liking to kindly Javier despite the fact that he is overweight and not particularly attractive or charming. They start to see each other but things hit the fan when Sergio finds them out but although Javier is madly in love with Natalia, she has no intentions of leaving her abusive boyfriend for him - she can't fight her sexual impulses and is just too attracted to him on some perverse masochistic level. When it all hits the fan, Javier beats Sergio within an inch of his life and sends him to the only nearby hospital, a veterinarian's clinic, where he's stitched up and left horribly scared. Javier, on the other hand, he runs through the woods naked, eats a deer, takes hot irons to his face and permanently burns into his skin the markings of his sad clown persona - and then the movie gets weird.
The Last Circus operates on a level of intensity few films can match and it reaches delirious new heights of on screen insanity yet also manages to tell an interesting story and make some interesting socio-political allegories along the way. Visually speaking the film is impressive enough simply on that level alone. Shot on a mix of physical locations and green screens, de la Iglesia isn't concerned in the least with realism here but instead sets out to create a world of pure madness where seemingly anything can and will happen. The heavy handed symbolism, with our two warring clowns representing the two warring factions of de la Iglesia's home country in turn obviously represented by Natalia, might not be subtle but it does add some very interesting subtext to the film which makes it more than just a couple of scary clowns taking a collective jump off the deep end. The whole thing builds to a manic conclusion that takes place on top of a giant cross, itself obviously a symbol of much importance to heavily Catholic Spain, which somehow manages to wrap everything up rather perfectly.
De la Iglesia also works in some interesting references to various aspects of pop culture, paying some sort of strange homage to subjects that vary from The Beatles to Cannibal Holocaust, hitting everything in between and all happens within the first few minutes of the film. It would be easy to see this as an exercise in style over substance or intentional sensory overload if the story weren't as solid as it is and if the performances weren't uniformly excellent, but they are. Each and every cast member seems completely committed to his or her part that you can absolutely accept them in their roles. You only need to pay close attention to the scene where Javier hides outside a window while Sergio has very rough (though not necessarily nonconsensual) sex with Natalia. As Sergio presses her against the glass and she gets more and more aroused by his increasing aggression towards her, you can not only see but feel Javier's heart breaking. It's a powerful scene that perfectly sums up the dynamic that exists between these three players and which goes a long way towards vindicating the political subtext de la Iglesia works into the storyline as well. And if that doesn't sell you on it, there are some bad ass scenes of psycho clowns going nuts with machine guns here and if the film can't completely keep things going full tilt until the finale, it comes damn close.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The Last Circus looks, in short, amazing on Blu-ray. The AVC encoded 2.35.1 widescreen 1080p high definition transfer was taken from a purely digital source and so the image is crisp and clean and remarkably colorful and understandably there's no print damage at all. Rather than add fake grain to the picture which seems to be an odd trend, de la Iglesia lets the digital format work in his favor - this doesn't look like film but it's not meant to. There's remarkable depth to many of the scenes, only the heavy CGI backgrounds in the finale betray the film in that regard. Close up shots of the actors look amazing, showing every wrinkle and pore you'd expect and then some even when they're under heavy makeup. Color reproduction looks perfect in terms of the aesthetic that the movie is working in and texture in the various costumes and backdrops at the circus look excellent as well. Black levels are generally good but a few scenes do suffer from some quick and minor crush - thankfully these are infrequent and the image is otherwise top notch.
Also impressive is the Spanish language DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio mix. Machine runs burst with plenty of punch and power behind them while dialogue remains clear and well balanced. There are no problems with hiss or distortion and there's good range to the mix throughout. The score plays around with all channels front and back very effectively and it sounds consistently excellent, while rear channel activity is a constant throughout, whether it's being used for bombastic sound effects during the action scenes or offering up subtle ambient noise in the quieter moments of the film. An optional English dub, also in DTS-HD 5.1, is included but doesn't suit the film as nicely as the original language mix does, while subtitles and closed captions are included in English only.
The extras department is the only area where this release is a bit weak. There are three featurettes included here, each in standard definition, the first of which is the fifteen minute long The Making Of The Last Circus which features interviews with the key cast members as well as the director and a few other crew members interspersed with some decent behind the scenes clips. Less inspired is the seven and a half minute Behind The Scenes featurette which is little more than a few minutes of fly-on-the-wall on set footage presented without any context. The last featurette is the most interesting and it's the ten minute Visual Effects segment in which we see how a team of artists worked for a couple of months straight to bring de la Iglesia's vision to life on the screen and how computers and green screens were used to do that.
Aside from that, we get promos for a few other Magnolia properties and three different trailers for The Last Circus, only one of which is presented in high definition. Animated menus and chapter stops are also included.
The Final Word:
As enthralling as it is demented, The Last Circus is not only a visual mindblower but it's also simultaneously thought provoking and intense. The fact that it's populated by horrific looking clowns is reason enough for some horror junkies to want to seek this out but this movie has a serious story to tell underneath all of the visual insanity and it's this aspect of the film that makes it more than just twisted eye candy. Magnolia's Blu-ray release doesn't offer up much substance in the extra features department but it hits a home run with the transfer and the lossless audio tracks - very highly recommended.
Click on the images below for full size Blu-ray screen caps!
