The Last Circus

The Last Circus (Balada triste de trompeta, 2010) is Álex de la Iglesia's savage tragicomedy, and you can watch it online on iFILM. It begins with clowns and ends in blood, with Spain's wounds in between.

During the Civil War, a circus's Funny Clown is dragged into the fighting and charges the enemy in full costume, swinging a machete. Decades later, under Franco's dictatorship, his son Javier signs on as a Sad Clown with a traveling troupe. His new boss is Sergio, the brutal, charismatic Happy Clown who routinely beats his partner, the acrobat Natalia. Javier falls hard for her, and the rivalry between the two men curdles into an obsessive, disfiguring war that neither can stop.

Calling this one genre would miss it: de la Iglesia blends horror, slapstick, melodrama and a furious allegory about a country still bleeding from its past. The film took the Silver Lion for direction at Venice along with the screenplay prize. It's grotesque, loud and not for the squeamish, but for anyone drawn to Spanish cinema balanced on the edge of nightmare and farce, few films go this far. Stream The Last Circus (2010) online on iFILM.