With an overload of people having things to watch on streaming services, we here at Entertainment Fuse have decided to make it a little easier on you. Starting this week, we plan on having a weekly article dedicated to watch at least one thing that's worth your money, calling it The Stream. People pay money to services that offer up a wealth of content, that sometimes people just don't know what to do with. Whether its Hulu, Netflix, Crunchyroll or many of the other services that provide high quality streaming, we here at Entertainment Fuse will do everything in our power to guide you folks in the right direction! This week on The Stream, we take a look at Alex de la Iglesia's The Last Circus.
Released in 2010, under the title, Balada Triste de Trompeta (Ballad of the Sad Tumpet), this Spanish film opens during the late 1930's, during the Spanish Civil War. Javier is the son of the Funny Clown in the local circus, who lives a carefree life, until a group of Spanish Republicans kidnap his father. After being defeated and forced into a labor camp, Javier's father tells him to follow in his footsteps and become a clown. Flash forward to years later and we see Javier (Carlos Areces) has become a clown, but has become the sad clown, in correlation with the traumatic events of his past. As he tries to adapt to his newfound environment, he gets entangled in a love triangle, social upheaval and other random chaos that ensues in the circus.
Iglesia's The Last Circus is something to behold, a film that runs rampant with imagination and energy that makes it for an incredible experience. For fans of Terry Gilliam, early Tim Burton, Guillermo Del Toro, Frederico Fellini and other filmmakers that have married beautiful imagery of both reality and fantasy. The film clearly wears its influences on its sleeves and manages to be a wonderful melange of genres that make The Last Circus a film that needs to be seen to be believed. The social commentary and use of the settings of the Spanish Civil War and Franco's regime makes Iglesia's film feel potent, that never feels out of place, even with its outlandish visuals and incredible action.
With its blend of many things, The Last Circus shall certainly entertain you for its running time. While it dulls for a bit in the middle, this film should certainly be seen by horror buffs, fans of dark comedies and people that like lavish production design. That's it for this week's recommendation on EF's The Stream and be sure to check back week after week. People have to whittle down what they have in their queue and we here at Entertainment Fuse are here to help!
The Last Circus is currently streaming on Netflix.
