TIFF 2010: First Footage From Alex De La Iglesia's LAST CIRCUS (BALADA TRISTE)

Here's a little something odd and I don't mean the movie itself, though coming from director Alex de la Iglesia that's pretty much a given. No, with Iglesia's Last Circus soon to premiere in both Venice and Toronto - making it surely the highest profile film of his career - the first footage of the film has turned up via Spanish website El Pais. That's not odd, either, that's just good business. The odd bit is that instead of just giving El Pais the footage to properly encode and upload they instead a a camera man film the footage off of a monitor, ensuring that it would be washed out and unstable, essentially creating an authorized cam job. And that's just wrong for a film as colorful as this and a film maker as visual as Iglesia. Find the TIFF synopsis for the film below, the video below that and a gallery of images below that.

Alex de la Iglesia's latest feature, Balada Triste (The Last Circus), is a wild and hilarious film that exposes the nature of political conflicts in his country's recent history. Set in a circus, the film offers a pointed metaphor for the Spanish Civil War and the years of Franco's dictatorship. The war and its aftermath have been the subject of many films, but never has the darkness and absurdity of this period in Spain been so eloquently expressed.

The film begins in 1937, as circus workers are forced to aid the Republican army in a battle against the National front. The Silly Clown (Santiago Segura), dressed in full costume, manages to wreak havoc on their ranks with a machete. When his young son Javier (Carlos Areces) attempts to help him escape from a work camp, Colonel Salcedo (Sancho Gracia) thwarts his efforts and Javier is left an orphan.

In 1973, Javier, now an adult, lands a gig as the sad clown in a circus. The silly clown, Sergio (Antonio de la Torre), is a cruel thug who terrorizes his co-workers and beats his girlfriend, the beguiling dancer Natalia (Carolina Bang). Javier, easy to seduce, falls deeply in love with her, leading the two men to fight for her affections in one jealous rage after another.

De la Iglesia's genius for dark humour is at its most eloquent in this farcical tragicomedy which is complemented by an excellent cast. Bold and personal, original and adventurous, Balada Triste (The Last Circus) takes us on an unpredictable trek that culminates in a showdown at the Valley of the Fallen, the monument that Franco had built to honour the soldiers that had died during the Civil War. Just as the two factions in Spain destroyed the very thing that they claimed to honour, these two clowns manage to turn love into an annihilating force.