Picture a small town in the south (southern Italy in the 1950s, as it happens) where people talk slow and not much happens until the sun goes down and the church bells ring. (Think Faulkner, Song of the South, Porgy and Bess.) Then a travelling circus comes to town, a whole troupe of clowns (those irrespressible pagliacci), squeezed into a real clown car, a tiny black Fiat 500. You can guess what happens next: sex, jealousy, violence and death. more ›