Balada Triste de Trumpeta (2010)

Directed by: Lex de la Iglesia | 107 minutes | drama, comedy, war | Actors: Carlos Areces, Antonio de la Torre, Carolina Bang, Manuel Tallafé, Alejandro Tejerías, Manuel Tejada, Enrique Villén, Gracia Olayo, Sancho Gracia, Paco Sagárzazu, Santiago Segura, Fernando Guillén Cuervo, Fofito, Sasha Di Bendetto, Juan Viadas

The story is promising.

The Spanish film ‘Balada triste de trompeta’ is about two circus clowns, one happy and one sad. When the sad clown falls in love with the happy girl’s girlfriend, the circus breaks out. What the cheerful clown doesn’t know: the most important life lesson his colleague has learned is that nothing tastes sweeter than revenge. What he also doesn’t know is that his sad colleague is dealing with some traumas from the Spanish Civil War.

It makes for a special film that is not particularly good. Director/screenwriter Álex de la Iglesia seems to have drawn from too many examples. The exuberant visuals are reminiscent of the work of fellow Spaniard Bigas Luna, we have already seen the combination horror/war in ‘El laberinto del fauno’, the melodrama is Almodóvarian, albeit less compelling. We know mutilated clowns from ‘The Dark Knight’ and the denouement has Hitchcockian features. But above all, the film seems influenced by the melodramatic opera of the early 20th century. Drama and music leave no room for nuance, and if you listen carefully, you will even notice a speck of ‘Pagliacci’ in the score.

With all those influences, ‘Balada triste de trompeta’ has trouble finding a consistent tone. The film begins with a Rambo clown in a dress and wig causing a massacre in 1937, then we go to a realistic cafe fight in 1970s Madrid, then we see a lavish make out against the windows of a bar and then we go back to a haunted house with the sad clown and the girl of his dreams. Then we are less than fifteen minutes on the road and the tone has already changed from grotesque to gloomy to exuberant to romantic. Because the tone changes color so often, it is impossible to empathize with the worries of the circus customers.

Fortunately, there is a lot of visual splendor and a serious message about deeds that can never be erased. As the film progresses, we are also curious about what will happen to those weird clowns. All this makes ‘Balada triste de trompeta’ not recommended, but an intriguing, ambitious, deadly tiring, exuberant, bizarre, annoying, way too long and – despite the multitude of influences – original film.

With a story that never gets beyond promising.