The enthusiastic reviews here led me to purchase this DVD--I couldn't find it to rent and, after seeing the recent touring production of Saltimbanco, I was particularly eager to see the mime René Bazinet who, I gather, created the original mime role in that extravaganza. Unfortunately, the most interesting bits for a Cirque fan are the extras, which include two beautiful sequences of performers in strangely appropriate European settings and a few compelling seconds of Mr. Bazinet actually performing as a mime rather than as an actor (he gets to do this briefly at the end of the movie, also, when his character is finally integrated into the circus, having kissed his true love). I expected something like the film Children of Paradise, which presents the extraordinary relationships between a clown and his public, true love and the realities of daily life. Although these are the themes of Alegría, the relationships are so poorly drawn that the result seems a muddle.
This is a confused, sentimental, and somewhat monotonous film (narrated in voice-over). The "real world" presented in it was as fantastic and beautiful as the circus world--just less disciplined and well-lit. The hero, Frac, is supposed to be a Little Tramp everyman character, but his mime makeup and costume are there from the start and he sings like a bird. His plumage is rather dull in the "real" world of Felliniesque whores and retired opera singers and exotically dressed child flower-sellers he inhabits. We never learn anything about the past which is represented by the photographs of himself he tears up, nor about his relationship with the child Momo. When the circus arrives the main difference between it and the dark, supposedly terrible and desperate street world is that it has better lighting (there is even a little speech about "stepping into the light" of the stage, awkwardly inserted to support a dramatic moment) and the women are a lot skinnier (the better to tie themselves in knots). When the children finally escape the dark world to come to the circus, they discard their bright clothes and choose to dress in uniform white--this is visually impressive but symbolically disturbing, I think, as if the circus requires both performers and audience to discard individuality, to bring nothing of the past to the experience. Perhaps this is the intended message, but if so it is no more liberating than the sermons of wicked Marcello, the child-enslaver. The symbolism of flowers (Marcello runs a flower factory, which since it has no light or dirt presumably grows flowers from the children's energy; but when Frac wants to give his true love a symbol of his feelings, he chooses flowers, and she treasures them) is messy rather than complex, too.
Good stuff: I enjoyed Frank Langella as the head clown who rules the circus. The little boy acting Momo provides genuine emotion (which the adult Momo's narrating voice drains away, though) The clown wedding sequence is surreal (no voice-over needed, or comprehensible words except for "Mama! Daddy!") and helps tie together the themes of love, the sad darkness of "real life," and performance. And Mr. Bazinet is fascinating when he is allowed to let himself go.
This is a confused, sentimental, and somewhat monotonous film (narrated in voice-over). The "real world" presented in it was as fantastic and beautiful as the circus world--just less disciplined and well-lit. The hero, Frac, is supposed to be a Little Tramp everyman character, but his mime makeup and costume are there from the start and he sings like a bird. His plumage is rather dull in the "real" world of Felliniesque whores and retired opera singers and exotically dressed child flower-sellers he inhabits. We never learn anything about the past which is represented by the photographs of himself he tears up, nor about his relationship with the child Momo. When the circus arrives the main difference between it and the dark, supposedly terrible and desperate street world is that it has better lighting (there is even a little speech about "stepping into the light" of the stage, awkwardly inserted to support a dramatic moment) and the women are a lot skinnier (the better to tie themselves in knots). When the children finally escape the dark world to come to the circus, they discard their bright clothes and choose to dress in uniform white--this is visually impressive but symbolically disturbing, I think, as if the circus requires both performers and audience to discard individuality, to bring nothing of the past to the experience. Perhaps this is the intended message, but if so it is no more liberating than the sermons of wicked Marcello, the child-enslaver. The symbolism of flowers (Marcello runs a flower factory, which since it has no light or dirt presumably grows flowers from the children's energy; but when Frac wants to give his true love a symbol of his feelings, he chooses flowers, and she treasures them) is messy rather than complex, too.
Good stuff: I enjoyed Frank Langella as the head clown who rules the circus. The little boy acting Momo provides genuine emotion (which the adult Momo's narrating voice drains away, though) The clown wedding sequence is surreal (no voice-over needed, or comprehensible words except for "Mama! Daddy!") and helps tie together the themes of love, the sad darkness of "real life," and performance. And Mr. Bazinet is fascinating when he is allowed to let himself go.
