ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Hattie I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Celia A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Aristides-2 Director Alex de la Iglesia gets high marks for his studying of Fellini's films and being able to translate this via his talent into a exciting-to-watch visual style. But then we have the context of the movie's story, which depicts the sadistic-masochistic yearnings of a middle-aged self-ab, as the movie slips into a cauldron of blood, cruelty and gore. The tradition of Bunuel continues though. That is, the scrutiny of Spain's society;late thirties to the seventies, deformed by an oppressive Catholic-inspired, fascistic and long lived government. Missing is any of the humanity that Bunuel and Fellini imbued some or all of their stories with. I found this movie quite disgusting to experience.

info-12388 Okay, so it's about these two clowns — the Happy Clown and the Sad Clown — and the woman between them. The Sad Clown's father and grandfather (and who knows, great- grandfather maybe) were all clowns, so it just follows that he will be as well.But here's the thing: don't bother watching the trailer, because it has zip to do with the film. If anything, it addresses things that happen in the first ten minutes and pretty much ignores the rest. If you went by the trailer, you'd think this was about some crazy circus clown who goes around killing people — well, yes, but the trailer is pretty much about the main character's father, not the character himself.But the script is just a hysterical mess, meandering from psychological thriller to slasher film to political allegory and back again, such that by the time you get to the end, you really no longer care about these three and their incredibly messed-up lives (or, in one case, death). And getting to that end requires, at times, the patience of Job: a very strange scene in a well that seems put in there for some kind of... well, I'm not sure what it was in there for. Then, shortly afterwards, when (SPOILER) Sad Clown burns his face with acid and an iron... you just sit there wondering what drugs the writer/director had and where you can get some.It's suggested that you should read this as a political allegory: the Happy Clown as Franco, the Sad Clown as the Republicans, the Girl Between Them as Spain, left broken in half and hanging by a thread. It's a stretch, at best, but given how utterly whacked this thing is, I suppose that works as explanation as well as anything else.

kosmasp Carolina Bang (or in this case her character) is a woman you can understand getting crazy about. But of course that is not all, that is hidden in this movie. Some story threads may only be comprehensible to those who have studied Spanish history (especially the beginning is really out there). I couldn't tell, because it seems detached from the rest of the movie.But as the German title of the movie suggests (Mad Circus), there is this other world, where our main characters live at. And while we have a protagonist, you will find it very difficult to describe him as a hero for many reasons. Alex de la Iglesias has done quite a lot of movies and many of them are controversial. And it's not different with this one. It is completely crazy at times (or mostly?) and seems to lose its narrative through it all. But if you stick with it, you'll get one seriously OTT finale ...

Red-Barracuda In 1937 a circus clown is drafted into battle against fascist forces in Spain. He wears his full clown outfit as he wades through the enemy soldiers hacking at them with a machete. Years later in 1973, his son carries on the family tradition and becomes a clown too – the Sad Clown. In the circus he works at he comes into with the sociopath Smiling Clown and his beautiful girlfriend, Natalia, the trapeze artist. Very soon, violent jealousies erupt between the clowns and a maelstrom of insane violence ensues.It's difficult to say if there is an underlying message in The Last Circus. The Spanish Civil War is a backdrop, as is Franco's Spain but to be perfectly honest, if there is a message, it's lost in the mayhem. But this doesn't matter because the movie works best if you take it at face value. It's a Felliniesque melodrama about violent clowns fighting over a gorgeous girl. The tone of the film alternates radically and without warning between funny and vicious. Sometimes they overlap, like when the Smiling Clown beats the Sad Clown to a pulp with a fairground hammer, in doing so hitting the winning bell; he is dragged away from the battered body of his victim while shouting 'I want my teddy!'. This sort of juxtaposing of extreme violence with silly comedy is something that happens throughout The Last Circus and may very well leave some viewers baffled. But for fans of cult cinema this approach should not be much of a problem I would venture. The Last Circus does seem to show again that when it comes to surrealism, the Spanish sure know how to deliver. From the start this is evident. In the incredibly great opening credit sequence we have military style drums hammering away while we are bombarded with an over the top array of bewildering imagery – from black and white photographs of Civil War Spain, to a still of Raquel Welch in One Million Years B.C. juxtaposed immediately with a gruesome shot from the Italian gore-fest Cannibal Holocaust. It's one of the most arresting credit sequences I can ever seeing – thematically it's difficult to say what it means but it of visual artistry it's terrific.Acting personnel all do excellent work in bizarre roles. But special notice needs to be made for Carolina Bang for also being quite ridiculously attractive throughout – it's quite easy to see why she has driven these psychopathic clowns to such crazed distraction. Director Álex de la Iglesia has to be given credit too for bringing all this madness to the screen with such style and verve. He has created a film here that in all honesty is very difficult to categorise in of genre – there's a little bit of war, quite a lot of comedy, a good deal of melodrama and a host of extreme gruesomeness; but it does not fit into any one genre very well at all, in truth this is one of the things that makes it good. If I had a criticism it would be that the final third loses a little impetus but that's mainly because the opening two thirds is so wild and strong. The Last Circus comes highly recommended for fans of psychotronic cinema.