El gran Totó
2015 · 12m · España
Directed by Carlos Ramos
Genres: dark comedy, drama, thriller
Tones: dark, melancholic, theatrical
A circus clown will have a great success, but with time he falls into oblivion, falling into a great depression and creating a multiple personality, that of a murderer clown.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A murderer clown with dissociative identity born from forgotten stardom—it's genuinely warped, the kind of premise that makes you wince and lean in at the same time. Most scouts will see schizophrenia-as-plot-device and move on; that's exactly why it's worth the risk.
The theatrical staging and tonal register here recall German Expressionism filtered through late-period Chaplin, but the execution doesn't quite justify the formal ambition—there's interesting lineage, yet the craft doesn't sustain the weight of what it's attempting.
The decision to play the psychological fracture through physicality and clown performance rather than exposition gives this a real sting; watching the body betray the character across those twelve minutes is what makes the depression feel earned rather than explained.