Circus School

If listening to great blasts of hypocritical, draconian invective directed at small kids is your cup of tea, then you'll love Circus School! This documentary follows the trials and tribulations of students and teachers at the Shanghai Circus School, where most of the kids work their butts off day and night, improving in their scary-making acrobatics in spite of having unhelpful stuff screamed at them constantly. EG 'You just don't want to be successful, do you?'

Time and time again they crunch into safety nets, the floor, or the odd iron pole. There's never one word of encouragement or praise, just wall to wall negative reinforcement, and the kids seem so numb from concentration and exhaustion that they never speak.

I wondered if it was just the school itself that's like this, but when the parents show up, they seem to espouse the same 'You're number one or you're nothing' line as the staff. Moments later, it's the staff's turn to berate the parents. Then the principal's turn to berate the staff. He reduces the triple handstand instructor to tears, using a combination of king-hitting insults like 'The only thing you don't fear is your lack of responsibility!'

Between the nakedly dysfunctional hectoring and the amazing feats the kids pull off, this is galvanising viewing. Still, the macroscopic arrangement of the material is about as loose as can be. Captions explaining the fate of certain kids appear without much rhyme or reason, or even without making it very clear whether said events occurred in the past, present or future. It's still a good film made up of great kids, great feats and some appalling teaching.