Circusboy
(Germany, 86 min.)
Dir. Julia Lemke, Anna Koche
Programme: World Showcase (North American premiere)
Some birthrights mean that children will inevitably join the family business. The mafia. The royals. Maybe farming families in rural areas. Then there’s the circus.
Life on the road with a travelling circus makes a child’s destiny seem written in the stars. That looks to be the case with Circusboy subject Santino, an 11-year-old boy coming of age while touring with Circus Arena. The travelling show conjures the magic of the big top across Europe as a family of nomads brings entertainment and escapism to villages around the continent. Such a nomadic life, however, gives Santino little stability outside of the circus itself.
Directors Julia Lemke and Anna Koche conjure a family-friendly slice of cinéma vérité meets road movie. Taking a cue from a path of backstage docs, Circusboy observes the Arena crew in action. They raise the tent, perform, and then deconstruct the whole thing when audiences leave happy. The grandly entertaining Circusboy also benefits from a cast of characters who are born performers. Every task unfurls with theatrical panache as the doc chronicles Circus Arena for one fateful year. It’s a healthy and active cycle, but also hard and demanding work.
It’s all a big game for Santino, though. He and his brother, Giordano, pitch in by hammering stakes to help raise the tent, selling toys and peanuts during the show, and then feeding leftover popcorn to the cows and camels—a task that seems to delight the boy as much as it does the animals. But Santino approaches the age where he gets to be more than a runner. His great-grandfather, Ehe, tells him that it’s time to pick a performance. He’ll soon get to inspire joy and laughter from under the big top.
That graduation of sorts delights Grandpa Ehe. The elderly ringleader of Circus Arena dotes on his great-grandsons while raising them to continue the family legacy. Grandpa Ehe regales Santino with stories to instill within him the sense of the family legacy. Santino listens intently as his grandfather tells him how he started the business after meeting his late wife. Grandpa Ehe explains that he, too, was born into a circus, but quickly realised that the circus could provide for his wife and four kids. So, he continues with a wink in his eye, he formed his own outfit when he and Santino’s great-grandmother realised they could have a house or a circus, but not both, and Circus Arena was born.
Circusboy breaks from the striking vérité during these segments as playful animation complements Grandpa Ehe’s stories. He remembers a sturdy old elephant and the hardship of wartime. But his whimsical tours through nostalgia illustrate how the tried and tested entertainment of the circus serves as an enduring pastime. It may seem anachronistic in the age of screen-based entertainment, but it’s timeless showbiz.
The film observes the machinery of the circus as a living thing where various entities work together to make the grand production work. Lemke and Koche afford the immersive study a fanciful sense of child-like wonder, but there’s a Wisemanesque grandeur to the observational format. Much in the fashion of National Gallery or City Hall, the filmmakers capture every pulse, heartbeat, nut, and bolt of a well-oiled institution.
Circusboy steps out from under the big top as Santino visits schools throughout his travels. It’s a tough life, having a piecemeal formal education and limited social interactions outside the circus. His revolving teachers and students, however, lend him their ears just as he does when Grandpa Ehe delivers stories. Santino’s confidence and gusto demonstrates the power of a born performer. The kids around him might not understand the appeal of the circus, but he proves how Grandpa Ehe instilled within him a showman’s art.
These interactions offer some of the few critical gazes of the circus and the circus people. They’re a novelty, but also still regarded as lesser than in a culture that values rootedness in the form of the home that Santino’s great-grandmother desired. But Circusboy observes how a home and one’s roots can be nomadic. The circus comes and goes from city to city, but its heart remains the same. The doc captures the complexity of circus life with charm and whimsy, at once observing the magic of life under the big top, but also the hardships entailed with being on the road. But when every day boasts the magic of the ring, life is grand for an innocent such as Santino.
