Known for the Timewasters series, which followed a quartet of London jazz players as they travelled through time in an old, disused lift and which was nominated for the BAFTA for Best Comedy Series, Irish director George Kane recently set himself the colossal challenge of shooting a feature film (almost) entirely populated by clowns. Apocalypse Clown [+lire aussi :
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fiche film], which hit Irish and British cinemas on 1 September via Wildcard and Vertigo respectively, dropping on Netflix in these very same countries on Monday 23 October and selected for Lausanne’s recent LUFF, to name but one festival, is an ensemble film which is so absurd it’s surreal, a tribute to clowning which makes us laugh grudgingly but also fondly. Clowns are often depicted in film as frightening entities (look no further than the mega famous It), ambiguous and depressive: perfect characters for dramas and horror stories. With Apocalypse Clown, Kane looks to invert this trend, inviting us to observe the world of clowns with benevolence and empathy. Through his bizarre and irreverent sense of humour, Kane’s clowns become (anti)heroes in a world on the verge of imploding, a bewildering world where nothing is as it seems, a frightening yet cathartic place in which to seek out and find ourselves.

The day after the funeral of Ireland’s biggest circus artist, Jean DuCoque, three clowns adrift in the world - Bobo (David Earl), Funzo (Natalie Palamides) and Pepe (Fionn Foley) – embark on a chaotic but liberatory journey in search of a form of humanity they thought lost forever. A mysterious solar cataclysm seems to have turned the world into an inhospitable land dominated by anarchy, where bare survival is in the only thing that matters. Jenny Malone (Amy De Bhrún) - a journalist also known as “the clown fucker”, who’s obsessed with clickbait and who hopes to make her name with the wider public by way of a scoop based on conspiracy theories - guides this improbable trio of clowns wrestling with delusions and obsessions which go from personal to collective. The Great Alfonso (Ivan Kaye), a pompous and arrogant circus master who hopes to take DuCoque’s place, becomes the enemy they need to fight, a negative example of a clown who has betrayed his own values for a fleeting moment of fame. Between gory battles with vindictive human statues, blood-thirsty children, ravers high on hallucinogenic drugs, and tragicomic love stories, the three protagonists of Apocalypse Clown come together for a final show worthy of the incandescent, trashy Armageddon they’re experiencing, with decidedly comic implications.

A twisted, bewildering and low-cost Irish comedy, which shows us just how freeing and cathartic laughing at human contradictions can truly be, Apocalypse Clown is a pleasing and hilarious film where anything goes and where sensitive subjects such as mental illness and social marginalisation are tackled without sliding into melodrama. Here, “difference” and human weaknesses become weapons with which to fight the arrogance of those with power. Apocalypse Clown makes us laugh at ourselves and at the modern obsession with achieving a kind of fame which is, ultimately, tragically grotesque.

Apocalypse Clown is produced by Fastnet Productions Limited (Ireland), Namesake Films (UK) and uMedia (Belgium), with world sales entrusted to Charades.