THE CIRCUS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 110, 1 August 1941, Page 21

THE CIRCUS

(Mosfilm)

ELLINGTON is having a season of Continental films once again. It is welcome news to picture-goers, who are beginning to get a little critical (and

who doesn’t, at some time or another?), of Hollywood’s endless variations on the same old themes. Presumably the showing of a Soviet-made film within such a short time of the new alignment has its political implications, too; in any case, it helps to illustrate how quickly and adroitly some péople must be prepared to shift their positions these un certain days. The Circus is probably the best Russian film that could have been chosen to open the season. True, it has no English captions to aid the picturegoer stumbling in the darkness of the Russian language, but the story is so simply and directly told that this doesn’t matter much. More important, The Circus is light and bright and well laced with comedy, which may serve to reassure some people who think that all Soviet films are sombre, heavy-footed vehicles for Communist propaganda. There is a certain amount of propaganda, but it is not propaganda for any particular brand of politics, The moral which the story points, very carefully and subtly, is that a child, whatever the circumstances of its birth and whether it be white, black, or the result of union between white and black, is a human being, and just as entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as you and I. Which is good Christian philosophy whichever way you look at it. In this instance, the producers of The Circus have gone as far as claiming that it is uncharitable to criticise a white woman for having a child by a black man, People who find their eyebrows rising at this can dismiss it, if they like, as merely the Soviet way of solving the many problems of race and colour within the borders of the U.S.S.R. ; The story is a simple one. A white woman who has a child by an American negro, flees from racial persecution in company with a German circus artist, who shares her secret and befriends her. In Moscow, the woman falls in love with a Red Army officer, son of a circus manager. The German (who has, by the way, a resemblance to Anthony Eden, which one can only describe as unfortunate), is thereupon enraged, and threatens to reveal her secret. When he is finally persuaded that her love is indeed another’s, he does betray her, but to her surprise the ‘audience, good Soviet citizens all, laugh and hiss at him, acclaim the woman and her Red Army lover, and sing old Russian cradle songs to the kinky-haired child. The acting, particularly that of the three main players, is of a high standard, though it is difficult at times not to laugh at the sheer villainy of the Anthony Edenish German. In part, it is recognisable asthe application of a technique for which certain great directors of

the Moscow theatre have become widely renowned. The hero, for instance, elated at the discovery that the beautiful circus star really does love him, turns cartwheels and somersaults to express his joy; the villain, having laid a particularly mean trap, wraps his cloak dramatically around him and vanishes into thin air. Tricks not as obvious and unsubtle as one might think. It is hard to know how to rate The Circus from the point of view of entertainment, so we will leave our little man just sitting in his seat, and if you like, you can imagine that he has a non-com-mittal look on his face. Myself, I enjoyed it.