The circus seen as a gaudy and glorious mirror of life. Director Anders Refn fills his cinemascope format to the brim with all the action and all the people that make an old-style, grand-style big top go round: the bold, the brave, the beautiful, the bad, and the love, lust, hate, hope, high skills and low schemings of them all. All this and an aerialist's dream: the quadruple flying somersault!