A Spanish film that shows the attrocities of the Franco regime and that mixed with surrealistic fantasy. That reminds of Guillermo del Torro, not? In the 1930’ies we find ourselves in a weird circus with a violent main man. Main character Javier joins the circus as the sad clown and falls in love with the girlfriend of the boss. Where the first part of the film is quite gloomy (not really “Carnivale“, but still a bit), the film gets weirder and weirder and also bloodier and bloodier. It does not develop towards a horror, but more a violent thriller. Also the fantasy part slowly takes over and Álex de la Iglesia uses grand (computerised) stages and strange landscapes to add to the already surrealistic atmosphere. The characters are already both strange and colourfull (of course, in a circus) and there is some nice humour, so I guess I can recommend this film to people who like the films of Del Torro. A nice, weird film.
