Everybody loves a circus, perhaps filmmakers most of all. The circus was a pre-cinema world of innocence and illusion, a place where magic happened, and filmmakers from George Méliès to Fellini, Bergman to Wim Wenders have recognized the natural affinity between circus sleight-of-hand and the dream-making machinery of the cinema. Perhaps its original Japanese title, The Boy's Own Book of the 20th Century, best reveals Circus Boys' affinity with the wonder-filled worlds of children's stories of decades ago, as it spins a fairy tale about two young brothers in a not-so-great traveling troupe of clowns, acrobats. . .and one wonderful elephant. The two brothers, Jinta and the younger Wataru, grow up with big-top visions of becoming trapeze and tight-rope stars. Fate, of course, intervenes and Jinta, now a young man, strikes out on his own, leaving behind his brother and the warmth of his adopted family. Circus Boys then becomes two stories, one of the struggling small-time circus, the other of Jinta's journeys as a con-man, a "master of lies" who swindles poor villagers with fake "miracle" products. Between the two stories, writer-director Kaizo Hayashi perfectly evokes the way, though hopes get replaced by real life, some dreams never die. Shot in sparkling black and white, Circus Boys is a haunting, magical film, and it ends on a note of sheer poetry. --Tod Booth