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90A marvel of a documentary, a clear-eyed and affectionate film that tells a remarkable story with both visual and personal sensitivity. More impressive still, it's largely the work of one man.
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90Circo offers a touching chronicle of a dying culture harnessed to ambitions that remain very much alive.
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88An artfully observant and unexpectedly moving documentary.
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83Though Circo is pretty bleak, Schock doesn't skimp on the exotic wonder of a life on the road, surrounded by color and danger.
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80Circo is filled with beautiful images and haunting moments, especially in the third act, when the family unravels as the film culminates in a final triumphant, haunting image.
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80A well-told tale, and though its compact running time makes it a fine TV fit, its visual poetry is worth a big-screen look.
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75Ever so subtly, Schock gradually transports us beyond the exotic and into gripping universal storytelling, aided all the way by the evocative music of Tucson songsmiths Calexico.
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75Circo offers a fascinating mix of backstage drama and family dynamics.
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75The most amazing act in the Gran Circo Mexico doesn't take place in the ring - it's the grind between performances.
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75Circo is more like "The Smallest Show on Earth" than "The Greatest Show on Earth," the 1952 Oscar winner, but it does provide a look at a unique family and a disappearing way of life.
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67Enhanced by stunning cinematography by the film's director Aaron Schock and a soundtrack by indie rockers Calexico, Circo does more than provide an exotic peek at a vanishing way of life.
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60Circo zeroes in on the interpersonal strife within this collapsing clan - an angle that only occasionally lifts the film above confessional exotica.
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Apr 3, 201150The film engages sporadically but mostly fails to take advantage of its under-documented milieu.