(Balada triste de trompeta)
Country: SP/FR/IT/BEL
Technical: col/2.35:1 107m
Director: Álex de la Iglesia
Cast: Carlos Areces, Antonio de la Torre, Carolina Bang
Synopsis:
Orphaned by the Civil War, a child of the circus grows up resolving to be a 'sad clown', and finishes up with a motley troupe of entertainers led by a psychotic children's entertainer. Driven mad by fear and desire, he becomes a true child of Franco's Spain.
Review:
Like Guillermo del Toro, de la Iglesia explores fabulae such as Bluebeard, I Pagliacci and the Phantom of the Opera, and it can all get a little too frenetic, the gallows humour of the opening receding into psycho-gangster territory, and the whole culminating in a bravura Mount Rushmore parody against the backdrop of the Valley of the Fallen. A self-avowed love letter to the leading actress, the film thus breaks free of its moorings more than once through sheer weight of emotion, and never quite resolves its sado-masochistic conceit other than by recourse to insanity and violence, which may be saying something political about the legacy of Franco, who knows.
(Balada triste de trompeta)
Country: SP/FR/IT/BEL
Technical: col/2.35:1 107m
Director: Álex de la Iglesia
Cast: Carlos Areces, Antonio de la Torre, Carolina Bang
Synopsis:
Orphaned by the Civil War, a child of the circus grows up resolving to be a 'sad clown', and finishes up with a motley troupe of entertainers led by a psychotic children's entertainer. Driven mad by fear and desire, he becomes a true child of Franco's Spain.
Review:
Like Guillermo del Toro, de la Iglesia explores fabulae such as Bluebeard, I Pagliacci and the Phantom of the Opera, and it can all get a little too frenetic, the gallows humour of the opening receding into psycho-gangster territory, and the whole culminating in a bravura Mount Rushmore parody against the backdrop of the Valley of the Fallen. A self-avowed love letter to the leading actress, the film thus breaks free of its moorings more than once through sheer weight of emotion, and never quite resolves its sado-masochistic conceit other than by recourse to insanity and violence, which may be saying something political about the legacy of Franco, who knows.
