Author: Carnie FanCarnie Fan
Date: Jan 1, 2007 15:39
review from The Village Voice of "Freaks Uncensored"
by Gary Dauphin
February 24, 1999
In Ari Roussimoff's neatly jaunty documentary Freaks Uncensored, the
barker's siren song leads to a world as fully fleshed as it is
bizarre. A cornucopia of archival footage grounded by interviews with
the survivors and modern-day descendants of sideshows, Freaks is an
encyclopedic but breezy ride that shoots from the medieval origins of
the carnival to P.T. Barnum to a veritable visual menagerie of
pinheads, midgets, Siamese twins, giants, bearded ladies, dog-faced
boys, and more.
Many of the images are unwatchable in a medical horror-show way, but
Freaks never feels exploitative, Roussimoff always eager to point out
how his ever-morphing cast of real-life and made-up characters were
never quite what they seemed. Freaks isn't ever gushily
life-affirming, but the misty and often wry recollections of the
old-timers have a warmth that lingers long after the disturbing
spectacle of their bodies has faded.
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