Sin #96: De La Iglesia

A lot of people hate clowns. I tend to blame Stephen King’s “It” for the damage; its deranged clown played by Tim Curry caused endless nightmares for every kid that caught the miniseries on TV back in the 90s. I’ve often wondered what kind of people volunteer to become clowns. For every honest bloke wearing a wig and heavy makeup there must be a dozen of repressed man-childs on an everyday psychotic breakdown.

In “Balada Triste de Trompeta” (released in the US with the silly title of “The Last Circus”), a wickedly dark and audacious comedy of sorts, we meet a clown who’s been suffering since his early childhood (his dad, also a clown, was killed during the war in Spain). As a young man he becomes the “sad clown”, destined to never make anyone laugh. Not that there’s a lot of funny material in Alex de la Iglesia’s movie (except for incredulous laughter for its brutal and grotesque scenes).

Alex de la Iglesia is a director with a great sense of humor who almost always stamps his own brand of humor on each of his genre pictures. I remember one of his earlier comedies, the inventive “El Dia de la Bestia” about a priest trying to prevent the birth of the antichrist and therefore the end of days. It’s a funny movie that manages to be slightly blasphemous but terrifically entertaining (one of its stars is Santiago Segura, a comedian best known for his “Torrente” series). After “El Dia de la Bestia” I saw “El Crimen Ferpecto” (having missed Iglesia’s western spoof “800 Bullets”). The title is purposefully misspelled and its is a bit more grounded on reality than “Bestia” but, in a way, equally outlandish; it starts with a man desperately trying to become the general manager of a top retail store and ends as a grotesque battle between him and a very unattractive coworker who is obsessed with him. It ain’t exactly a love story.

“The Oxford Murders” is a strange departure for Iglesia. It’s his first English speaking feature, set in England and featuring Elijah Wood and the great John Hurt in a mystery thriller in the style of “The DaVinci Code”. Well, I hated “The DaVinci Code” and its sequel “Angels and Demons” (this one a little less I guess) mostly because those films are wall-to-wall with twists that cheat its narrative and make us care very little for any of their one-dimensional characters (Tom Hanks is especially dull as Robert Landon). “The Oxford Murders” is smarter, focusing on an intriguing premise and using a lot of mathematical and philosophical banter to solve its mystery and even though the ending is a little silly the movie remains intriguing and very entertaining.

“Balada Triste de Trompeta” remains Iglesia’s best movie because it transcends its genre and becomes a grotesque tragedy. It perfectly demonstrates Iglesia’s strange but compelling imagination and over-the-top sense of humor. He remains one of the most interesting directors in Spain.