Ladies and Gentlemen! Welcome! The most inventive Flemish Master & Primitive Cineaste in the World Gust Van den Berghe (winner of PÖFF 2014 with the unique circular “Lucifer”) returns with a melancholic circus show, indirectly inspired by silent films and slapstick comedies of the Golden Age.

In the splendidly decorated barbaric world of Antwerp, an ordinary lonely Lucien has an inhuman capability to stick metal objects to his body. An introverted Buster Keaton-like man of a few words is a hapless artist, clown, freak, and musician with a wounded heart and a quiet violin. His vocation is to entertain the common people despite his burning pain and guilt for the inevitable loss of an estranged father.

After the funeral of his mother, Lucien grabs a train ticket to Paris and finds shelter in the travelling theatre “Malfait” among magicians, opera singers, spooky ghosts, holy spirits, and a tearful buffoon (extended cameo by Jan Bijvoet, who also appears in “Natasha’s Dance”). The illiterate dreamer is stunned when he meets the graceful Gervaise to improvise an irresistible love tango with a beautiful magnet.

Deadpan Chaplinesque mishaps of a Flemish kind adventurously fulfilled by darkly physical humour. The well-crafted dynamic spectacle lost two actors during the endless pandemic post-production but preserved magnificent quality, novelty, artistry, catchy songs, a rich instrumental soundtrack, and a solid charismatic acting debut by circus man Danny Ronaldo.

Edvinas Pukšta