Review: "Circo" dissuades you of any remaining circus nostalgia

It's easy to love the romance of the circus. Despite the high-profile stories of animal cruelty and legends of "carny folk," circuses hold a magic usually reserved for wild west cowboys, prohibition gangsters, and seafarers of the golden age of sail. We all know it's hard and sometimes horrible work, but there's a dreamy nostalgia in the circus, even if the individual has never actually experienced it themselves.

It is easy to think that things have changed--that circuses were once something else and fell from their entertaining grace to the dregs of live entertainment. In this narrative, the circus can still be magical. It can be the forerunner by Disneyland. "Circo" director Aaron Schock has made a film to show you that the suffering of the circus didn't get worse over time. If anything, he shows that in a world without regulations, without Netflix, and without money is actually much uglier than Barnum & Bailey when the curtain finally went down.

Schock follows the Ponce family and their one-ring circus, Circo Mexico. The documentary Tino, the ringmaster of Circo Mexico. Indebted to his father and the family legacy, he trains his children to perform in a low-level circus while his wife tries desperately to convince him that he is being taken advantage of, and destroying his family to boot. Through it all, there are failed shows with low turnouts, deaths of circus animals, and testimonies of loss from even the family's youngest members.

In the turmoil of the time spent with the Ponces, it is easy to forget that this is, at its core, a family of performers. The perfectly scripted marital struggles are convincing, but if you catch yourself thinking about them, they can feel a bit canned. Still, this family is struggling to get by, and with the exception of Tino's father, who is depicted counting money and demeaning off-camera family members for most of his screen time, they all come off decent and sincere. That decency and sincerity is what makes their separate paths so much more powerful.

Ultimately, "Circo" is a moving depiction of a family in a poor country trying to get by in a very difficult, unorthodox way. There are moments that feel manipulative, others that feel exploitative, but as a whole, it feel fair. The family you are watching is sometimes manipulative, as all our families are. The family you are watching is exploited, as many of our families have been. The filming is beautiful, the music great. But the people are what make this documentary worthwhile.