The first feature of documentarian Aaron Shock, Circo takes viewers behind the curtains of a Mexican circus that has crossed the nation since the 1800s. Revealing a world where toddles train to tumble, teens train tigers, and their parents take on death-defying stunts, the film is a mad fantasy made real.
Circo centers on the Gran Circo Mexico, a traveling troupe of circus performers made up of ten members of the Ponce family, half of whom are children. These proud circus folk have performed in the center ring for generations, teaching their children the trade as soon as they can walk. Of course, circus life is a full-time commitment, and as the film unrolls, the sacrifices the Ponce’s make to stay together and keep the circus going become more evident and seem more devastating.
Tino Ponce is the central figure in this showbiz tale. The eldest son of the circus’ owner, and has his children and wife working by his side day and night. While Tino loves the circus, his wife, Ivonne, who married into circus life, grows more and more frustrated. Her 10-year-old is learning acrobatics, but can barely read and write. Her eldest is growing to fall for the circus as his father did before him. She feels that her father-in-law uses her children as slaves, and worries that her kids are being trained to only exist within the Big Top’s walls. The Ponce’s martial dispute is the film’s main dramatic thrust, asserting the problematic nature of the Ponce’s family circus. For Tino, the circus is his family and the only life he knows. But for his wife, who was seduced by the circus’s allure when she married Tino at 15, the circus is her husband’s first love, taking precedent over all-else, including the wellness of his wife and children. She insists that they should do what’s right by their children, leaving the circus so they can be educated and escape from this financially and physically treacherous world, but Tino cannot comprehend a life without his circus family.
With this profound tale of marital discord at its center, Circo contains a gripping narrative. Sadly, this documentary never fully dives into the emotional depths its setup calls for. For one thing, Shock seems so easily disenchanted by the realities of circus life that as soon as Ivonne admits her concerns for her children, the film shifts to agree with her. Shock paints the circus as a dying art form and Tino’s father as a gruff and uncaring dictator. By extension, it makes it nearly impossible to understand Tino’s ties to the circus, presented as it is as a kind of mafia, where leaving its circle means betraying your family. He seems like a fool, blind to the realities we, the audience, see so easily. But the truth is more complicated than this first-time filmmaker allows. Yes, the circus is dangerous and insular, but it’s a business that has kept the Ponce family together and relatively happy for generations. It’s a tradition. Yet all this complexity is undercut by Shock’s reductive editing style that cuts from the elder Ponce counting his bills to his grandchildren perform manual labor, making him a grim and cartoonish figure of a bullying patriarchy.
However, despite it’s lopsided storytelling, Circo is intriguing and visually striking. With its web of complicated family ties, dazzling circus stunts, and poignant interviews, this documentary does capture something intimate and revelatory about the dynamics of this showbiz family. This includes family members who leave the circus, but are often drawn back like moths to a flame. The most interesting of these may well be three-year-old Naydelin, who is mercilessly trained by her grandparents to perform and tumble all summer, but attends kindergarten in the fall. The child gleefully looks forward to returning to the circus, but is also being afforded the opportunity of an education, seeming to present an emerging middle ground. And to Shock’s credit, his cinematography sometimes achieves moments of grace that stand out amidst the film’s grittier realities. These shots flicker and serve as a reminder of the allure we all felt toward the circus at some point. Ultimately, while Shock’s Circo stumbles, it is a curious and at times captivating portrait of a family whose life, love and legacy is the circus.
