Those with a fear of clowns might want to move on to a different article. Go read something about food or how to get dressed tomorrow. You might even want to skip to the sports section where it is guaranteed that Ronald McDonald won’t be mentioned.
For those still reading, imagine the Joker from “The Dark Knight.” Imagine how he looked, covered in that clown make-up, absolutely insane and out to kill people. Álex de la Iglesia seems to have thought that the only thing better would be to have a whole circus of Joker-like clowns creeping about, murdering and otherwise assaulting people.
Iglesia is the director of the clown-filled foreign movie called “The Last Circus.” Iglesia’s film will be shown at 8 p.m. on April 3 in the Eastern Michigan University Student Center.
When deciding whom to go with to watch the film, keep in mind the words of Gregg Costanzo, the Campus Life arts and entertainment director, who said, “This is not an appropriate movie for families or minors.”
Just because this isn’t a movie you should necessarily bring your seven-year-old sister to, doesn’t mean it lacks value.
According to Constanzo, “I think that it’s a very artistic film. So for students who may be nervous about sitting through a movie with subtitles, I think that it’s visually stunning enough that it will hold their attention.”
The movie holds other benefits to capture the attention of students, besides being “visually stunning.” Costanzo recommends “The Last Circus” to, “People who are interested in film making, people who are interested in artistic interpretation, people who are interested in foreign cinema and I think anyone who’s studying Spanish would find it helpful to sit through a Spanish film.”
Part of the reason why it’s important for Campus Life to be so careful about who they recommend to see “The Last Circus” is because it is an R-rated film. According to the Campus Life press release, “[The sad clown] later falls in love with [the happy clown]’s gorgeous acrobat wife, Natalia. A love triangle ensues between the three of them, and the two clowns engage in a horrific battle with one another.” However, what seems like a clown-version of a Twilight movie is truly a sex-and-murder-filled Spanish film.
Just because “The Last Circus” is considered to be a film for more mature audiences, doesn’t mean it’s not good.
Constanzo said, “I think, for this particular one, there was a collection of movies that we were considering as part of our special showings line up. I had set up some of the trailers for [the Campus Life staff] to review. Besides one of our staffers, who is very afraid of clowns, everyone thought this would be a good selection.”
The “special showing” is one of three different types of movies Campus Life makes available to EMU students. “We’ve got our Friday night series, our family film series and this is our special showing series,” said Constanzo. “Our Friday night series tends to be movies that are more blockbuster or mainstream. Special showings are based more out of content.”
Even though there are those three types of movies Campus Life provides, Constanzo said, “I think, oftentimes, some people will define our movie choices by our Friday night movies, but I think it would be unfair to categorize all our movies by the Friday night movies. [EMU students] desire there to be substantive films shown on campus, and just might be unaware that there are substantive films shown on campus.”
It’s because of the misconception about the types of movies Campus Life hosts, that Constanzo stresses the benefits of attending “The Last Circus.”
“Some of them it may be their first exposure to Spanish cinema or Spanish language. For others, it may be exposure to a movie that’s filmed beautifully. For some it may be their first time experiencing an entire movie in subtitles (that can be challenging for people their first time around). But this is a cinema-type experience and it’s free.”
