Balada triste de trompeta: Of Ghosts and Clowns

This chapter examines Balada triste de trompeta (The Last Circus, Alex de La Iglesia, 2010) nominated for fifteen Goya awards, the most prestigious Spanish film awards. Balada is a self-conscious kitsch re-elaboration of the traditional theme of the sad clown, a traditional motif of kitsch aesthetics. It traces the protagonist´s transformation from sad clown to serial killer against the background of Spanish popular culture—particularly popular music and Television programs—a pseudo-official kitsch culture closely monitored by Franco’s censors, whose ideological contradictions are exposed in the process. In Hitchcock-like fashion, the film reaches its climax at the top of the gigantic cross at The Valley of the Fallen, Franco´s monumental mausoleum and his burial site. There the film symbolically reclaims Spain from Franco´s Kitsch, fascist grasp.