Yoyo

A gifted entertainer exactingly resides in opulent isolation within his castle, every second of every day meticulously corresponding to specified curriculum. 

He dreams of the girl he once fell in love with who still routinely travels and brilliantly performs, their improvised union having spiritedly crafted a darling youngster raised in the circus.

The Great Depression miserably emerges and millions of people find themselves out of work, the idle artist losing his staff then rejoining his family on the staggering road.

His son grows up immersed in lively spectacular entertaining multivariable humours, wholesomely ensconced within random variation he gradually becomes a celebrated clown.

World War II despotically interrupts and lighthearted sentiments are cast aside, the mad dissemination of militaristic bravado autocratically obscuring the chill and genuine.

After the war, the invention of television once again problematizes circus life, as more people find immediate entertainment laidback and tranquil with the fam at home.

Yet little Yoyo reinvents himself once more and becomes even more famous within the medium.

Hosting lavish galas back at his father's castle.

With storytelling, everlastingly at home.

I would argue that gifted storytellers never lose their love of animals, and sincerely respond to their adorable genius no matter how austere their lives become.

The just and the wicked, there's a remarkable difference between world-weary desert-of-the-real morbid tales, and blossoming effervescent dynamic lifeforces ethereally etched with generous compassion.

Thus we see in Pierre Étaix's Yoyo a friendly elephant at different times, who genuinely loves the wee mischievous lad at the auspicious outset and at the conclusion.

Yoyo never really feels quite right when requisitely hobnobbing within the superstructure, and is greatly relieved indeed more down-to-earth when that same caring elephant interrupts his ball.

You see the details of his innocent world magnanimously shared throughout the film, as scene after scene showcases warm unpredictable spontaneous carefree pleasant wonder.

Never lose that love of animals and there's no doubt you'll continue to enjoy this film.

Which inherently investigates artistic re/invention.

From the Silent Film Era to the Age of Television.

*Interesting sounds too.

Yoyo doesn't rely on the stock film sounds you often hear.

The Circus

Jedi training indeed paramount for sundry peeps across the land, prosperous schooling discovering brilliant intrepid bold corresponding padawans. 

But at times the educational system loses track of its young Jedi, and while their powers continue to develop, they have no mentor to lend a hand (see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them). 

They remain remarkably powerful but have no definitive direction, and while attempting to culturally acclimatize can wind up engaged with routine farce.

Take the Little Tramp's (Charlie Chaplin) brief flirtation with improvised ragtag dissolution, which leads to imperial entanglements throughout his otherwise carefree days.

While trying to escape, he makes his way to the local circus, and accidentally proves miraculous, his raw unfiltered Jedi talent naturally sensational.

He has inherent multivariability which flexibly thrives and athletically entices, the resulting versatile wondrous artistry as mesmerizing as any virtuoso. 

Awareness remains a problem as he consciously realizes his strength, and must apply thought to consistently supply what he never meant to deliver in the first place.

He must intuit the way of the Jedi in front of a live audience no less, and habitually manifest the rowdy chaos instinctually engendered with his waking mind.

How many times when you didn't realize you were good at something did it become difficult to reproduce when animately expected, what was perceived to be nothing more than natural blundering instantly upheld as cultural craft?

To learn to continuously supply captivating comedy without any training, to consciously mimic accidental innovation, can take time and practice at that.

For Charlie Chaplin's The Circus the oblivious Jedi struggles upon the stage, after a period of incomparable productivity widely acclaimed by diverse audiences.

He was doing incredibly well until eavesdropping upon his love interest, and assuming the worst for his amorous ambitions lost that salient carefree initiative.

Having never learned to corral his freeform wild imaginative entertaining thoughts, within an expedient objective enclosure, his performance reflexively struggles.

The frustrating endemic throes of people with talent as they learn to develop, doesn't love always seem unattainable and then supernatural if suddenly requited. 

Fret not, a day will dawn when romantic dreams no longer complicate things.

And you can concentrate solely on your work.

It's not nearly as bad as it sounds. 

*In Chaplin's case, it's like he instinctually wrote the sacred Jedi texts during filmmaking's early days. Texts that were in fact page turners. Still to this postmodern age. 

Big Top Pee-wee

Immoderately immersed in mirthful grand performance, Pee-wee (Paul Reubens) sleeps the sleep of angels, peacefully awaiting another day, after having taken up farming.

Things run smoothly throughout the day as he cares for his many animals, who enjoy beneficial loving novel caring warm down home attention. 

Pee-wee also conducts advanced research into curious crop cultivation, having created an experimental formula which smoothly encourages rapt abundance. 

Unfortunately, he's not well-liked by the suspicious surrounding townsfolk, who critique his unorthodox ways and general flip alternative wherewithal.

They're even less impressed when a mighty storm blows a circus to town, which lands on Pee-wee's farm, and decides to put on a striking spectacle. 

Pee-wee makes new human and animal friends as the artists passionately rehearse, and even finds himself enamoured with a newfound trapeze expert (Valeria Golino as Ms. Piccolapupula).

But will Pee-wee's heartfelt accommodation be enough to encourage the distressed townsfolk, to abandon their strict routines for a night out under the nearby big top?

So much time spent trying to logically deal with rational exploits reasonably accrued, that impromptu absurd acrobatics present odd vital sincere parity.

Not just the hotdog tree or the supple pioneering pig (Wayne White as Vance), but the lucid sense of compelling wonder that drives wild ludicrous imagination.

Perhaps they shouldn't be in charge of stern prosaic determinate consistencies, so much requisite quotidian reckoning modestly attuned to predictability. 

But shouldn't such manifest grain not be adorned with counterbalancing nuance, to promote extemporaneous serendipity at times throughout the working day?

Thus as the routine despairing delineations approach concrete banal immutabilities, the bizarre shocks and unsettles somnambulism to sustain lighthearted active metamorphosis.

Just as it's nice to have reliable routines when shocks turn to harrowing frights, responsibilities generating forthright designations seasonally aligned to nurture balance.

Big Top Pee-wee brings these spectrums together in animate judicious active definition, to demonstrate holistic productive health, thoroughly enriched through compassionate understanding.

As unequivocal rewards endearingly impact age old ambivalent inquisitive uncertainties, the wolf howls and the dragonfly zings with erudite sonorous sprightly melody. 

Like Dale Cooper's daily treat it can be something never encountered before.

Beware if it happens to be smoking.

Even 4 months later, it's tough to quit.

The Fox Family (Fantasia Fest 2007)

When I heard about a new Korean film where a pack of foxes is transformed into a human family by a magic spell in order so that they can devour human livers during a lunar eclipse, livers which will provide them with the nourishment they require to maintain their human form, a chance they are only offered once in a thousand years, I figured I was in for a treat. And I figured correctly. Director Lee Hyung-Gon's The Fox Family delivers an hilarious, gruesome, off kilter horror/comedy/musical/romance that leaves most North American flicks cowering in their burrows. Sort of reminded me of Dead Alive. The Kumiho family has 30 days to figure out how to live amongst humans so that they can be guaranteed access to fresh livers on the night of the lunar eclipse. And how do they intend to obtain their meal? Why, opening up a circus of course! Their nimbly foxiness predisposes them to the acrobatic arts and soon they find themselves performing for kiddies in an urban centre, with one skit having the older sister's arms chainsawed off, squirting stump blood all over the crowd. Somewhat off-kilter.

I was a bit worried when I read that The Fox Family was a musical because I rarely take to such films but some of the numbers aren't bad, notably the lighthearted love songs. The song which accompanies the troupe's first experiences in the working world was a bit much, but it was overshadowed by the number which explores their attempts to get livers to join their entourage. The choreography is solid and one wonders how money was left over in the budget to create sprightly little special effects regarding humanoid foxlike behaviour.

Ki-Dong adds quite a lot to The Fox Family as he falls in love with the elder sister even though he knows she plans to feast upon his liver. It certainly doesn't stop him from pursuing some fertile fervid felicitous fox action. He remains with the family with the hopes of filming them in fox form, thereby providing the world with its first encounter with human-fox video, whereby he can earn enough scratch to pay off some goons. Like skirting the realms of heroine addiction in order to create some artistic legend before succumbing to devastation. And his comedic presence gives the film that extra bit of ridiculous depth which saves it two thirds of the way through as it starts to drag.

If you can get your hands on a copy, don't hold out on this hidden Korean gem. Come for the acrobatics and cringe whenever the motif of lips eating something disgusting reappears. It’s worth it for the ways in which it nurtures comedic insight, if not simply for the perfectly placed jilting opening line: "where can we find a lot of humans." I really don't know how to answer that question.