Circo

When watching a documentary about Mexico one might expect a fiery investigation into the affects the United States Drug policy is having on the Mexican people and the growth of violence at the hands of the ruthless cartels.  Or perhaps you might expect to be watching a heart wrenching investigative report into the plight of the illegal immigrant as they struggle to navigate the shadowy world of coyotes or smugglers. Or maybe a documentary about persecution and racial profiling under new American immigration policies in Border States.  What you might not expect is a small familial story centered around the trials and tribulations of a rural traveling circus.  The personal account of one man’s struggles to keep his family together and efforts to keep his enterprise afloat.  But that is exactly what Aaron Schock delivers in his feature documentary Circo, a poignant and acute portrait of a culture largely unexplored by the lens of a camera.

The Gran Circo has been a family enterprise for over 100 years.  The team that comprise the Circus force are made up of five adults and five children who partake in an endless cycle of training, performing, loading and unloading, erecting and deconstructing, or simply all work and little play.  A long living tradition, it is immediately evident the Gran Circo has seen better days.  The animals that comprise its surprisingly large zoo are bit worse for wear.  Rather than play the large cities of Mexico the circus entertains the rural villages, spending a day (or two at most) wherever they can pitch their tent; say behind a gas station.  It is a tough life and the economy is bad but for Tino, the passionate and fiery patriarch and ringmaster it is the only life he knows; he has been part of the circus since he was six.  While for him his passion for the Circus and performance make up for his lack of formal education (at one point he has trouble spelling his own name) for his wife Ivonne this is not the case.  Having married into the circus life Ivonne is worried about her children’s’ futures due to their lack of literacy and normalcy in their lives; they give there all but what to they get out of it.  These are worries that grow increasingly acute as the lack of sustainability of their current situation becomes more and more apparent; a fact further compounded by her in-laws monopoly over control of the circus’ earnings.  As the film progresses these tensions increase and film becomes a pathos-ridden examination of a mothers desire for more against her husbands blind enthusiasm for his culture and a dying way of life.

A small personal film, made all the more so by the singular effort the filmmaker took to produce it (acting as director, cinematographer, producer and sound recordist), Schock creates an intimate portrait of a family and lifestyle in decay. His lingering and floating camera captures the private moments of a family, both tender and combative.  Schock keeps from exploiting the emotional turmoil of the family, allowing the sensationalized to remain in the performance space of the circus. He creates a beautiful film, littered with poignant images and close ups of worn, handmade costumes and colorful tents that suggest a certain merit to this inherited lifestyle while contrasting it with the modern realities and urgings of a mother’s want of more for her children.  A testament to his filmmaking Aaron refrains from vilifying either party and instead presents a family that is facing the universal struggle of clinging to their inherited past in the face of an uncertain future.

                                            Sam Broadwin