Lost in La Mancha (2002) User Reviews

This Film Is No More! This is an Ex-Film!

[shinymc_shine · 8/10 · 13 January 2004]

"Lost in LaMancha" is a fascinatingly brilliant documentary about the aborted film project "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" and the problems faced by its writer/director Terry Gilliam. The two documentarians who followed Gilliam's "Twelve Monkeys" to produce "The Hamster Factor And Other Tales Of Twelve Monkeys" have done the same again here only this time there is no film to complement the documentary.

Gilliam is no stranger to controversy. Books, made for dvd documentaries and now this feature have been produced about his troubles in the tv and film industry. He has been labeled as a director who goes over budget though in this case the weather, the noise of overhead fighter planes and an ailing lead actor all come together to halt filming.

Gilliam's "The Fisher King" co-star Jeff Bridges narrates the doco which details pre-production through to its troubled shoot. "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" was to be the most expensive independently produced film in Europe with an international cast including Johnny Depp. Filming only lasted about a week before the insurance company closed down production. The insurance company now own Gilliam and Tony Grisoni's screenplay plus the surviving footage from the shoot.

People believe that the story of "The Man Of LaMancha" is cursed and the documentary mentions in minor detail another troubled genius, Orson Welles, and his unfinished Don Quixote project.

There has been other documentaries of this type such as "Hearts Of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse" about the lengthy production of Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now" but in the case of this film there is no happy ending. No cultural masterpiece that rises from a problematic shoot. This film is the cinematic equivalent of a train wreak. You know things are going to get ugly but you can't take your eyes off it. You have to admire Gilliam for signing off on this doco. It's a constant reminder of a time in his life wasted with nothing to show for it. It's terribly depressing but the crew's sense of humor and commitment to the project shine through.

If you're a fan of Gilliam's or interested in film production then this entertaining documentary is for you.

This is one of the saddest, most painful films I've ever seen.

[die_hard_kavorka · 8/10 · 27 January 2004]

I thought I had it bad on the set of my little student film in college.

Whew!

Watching this documentary was very difficult and very interesting at the same time. I enjoyed it, despite the tragedy that played out on the screen.

What makes the film so heartbreaking is that you know that the film will inevitably fail. So the entire movie-watching experience is steeped in dramatic irony. We, the viewers, know the outcome of this ill-fated film project known as "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote." But the filmmakers themselves, at the time of the filming, obviously do not know that all their actions are essentially in vain.

A great film, and a powerful warning to those who thinking making movies is easy.

Important for anyone who's ever wanted to direct a film

[MovieAddict2016 · 8/10 · 23 May 2005]

Terry Gilliam's had a controversial career. His "Brazil" in 1985 upset Universal because it had a "sad" ending, so they cut it apart and replaced the finale with a "happier" version. Gilliam hated their hack job of his work, and illegally screened his original version for a critics' circle -- they voted it one of the best films of the year. Soon Gilliam got his way and the film was released as he had originally intended, and it's now considered a classic.

A few years later he released "The Adventures of Baron Manchusen," a fantasy flop that went some $20 million over budget and collapsed at the box office. He quit directing for a while and, when he returned, started work on "Twelve Monkeys." It wasn't the best of shoots and his perfectionism resulted in eccentric, intolerable shooting schedules.

In 1998 "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" was released and the MPAA hated it, threatening to give it an X rating for its drug content. Released alongside "Godzilla," it flopped, but to this day remains a cult classic.

So it's reasonable to say Gilliam is quite an eccentric personality and has had a tumultuous career.

"The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" was going to be his new film until it crashed. The production was halted because Gilliam couldn't find an actor to play Quixote, flash floods destroyed equipment and one of his shooting locations was in fact a NATO airfield which created quite a problem for the filmmakers.

Gilliam's film probably would have been a great twist on the classic tale and I'm sure his eccentric vision would have suited it well. He also had a cameo by Johnny Depp in the movie and it's quite funny as shown in this documentary detailing the events of the production.

Gilliam recently said he's going to start production on this again and finish it up. I hope so, it really does look like a promising film.

In terms of this documentary itself, it's very insightful and a must-see for any Gilliam fan or aspiring director -- it's entertaining and important, and a great guide on how NOT to make a movie.

The Impossible Dream

[Buddy-51 · 19 July 2003]

Thanks to DVD, we've all become accustomed to seeing `inside' documentaries about the making of some of our favorite films. But what of those films that – for whatever reason – never end up seeing the light of day? Are there any lessons to be learned from examining the making (or near making) of those works? This is the questioned posed by `Lost in La Mancha,' a behind-the-scenes chronicle of director Terry Gilliam's attempt to fulfill his decade-long dream of bringing Cervantes' `Don Quixote' to the big screen, a project that ended up in heartbreaking, catastrophic failure for both the filmmaker and the gifted crew with which he was working.

Directors Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe did not, of course, set out to record such a debacle. Like all the people involved in the making of `The Man Who Killed Don Quixote' – a film intended to star Jean Rochefort and Johnny Depp - the documentary filmmakers assumed that Gilliam and his crew would end up with an impressive finished product and that their own work would serve as little more than supplemental material on a future DVD release of the film, certainly not a theatrical release in its own right. What none of them foresaw was the series of almost Biblical disasters that would ultimately doom the film to a state of perpetual nonexistence. Flash floods, health problems, nervous investors and bottom line insurance agents all eventually conspired to prevent Gilliam's dream from becoming a reality. Thus, what became a bust for Terry Gilliam turned into a boon for Fulton and Pepe.

With the benefit of hindsight, the filmmakers ensure that the parallels between Don Quixote and Gilliam himself are never far from the viewer's mind. Gilliam, a maverick director whose movies have always tested the boundaries of the film medium, is clearly an artist and a visionary obsessed with impossible dreams of his own, but dreams that inspire those around him to strive for a greatness not always nurtured by the mundane realities of the everyday world. The fact that, in this particular case, those realities intervened to bring his vision crashing back to earth only completes the connection to the Quixote figure. Gilliam spends most of his time in this film tilting at his own windmills, only to find that the vagaries of fate are more terrifying than any giants Quixote might have imagined. The documentary also notes that Gilliam is not the only major director to have been stymied in his attempt to adapt this material; the great Orson Welles failed to complete his version of `Don Quixote' as well. The irony of these two innovative cinema giants both failing with THIS particular material pervades the film with an eerie sense of doom and foreboding.

`Lost in La Mancha' is an instructive film on a technical level, but also immensely sad on an emotional one. Because we know from the beginning that this venture is doomed to failure, even the moments of hope and optimism early on in the film carry with them an air of fatalistic melancholy. This pre-knowledge also turns the many admittedly humorous moments into genuine black comedy.

It is always painful to see genius and creativity choked off at the root, especially since the few glimpses we get of actual completed footage hint at what a fine production this `Don Quixote' might have been. As to Gilliam, one can only hope that he will continue to pursue his impossible dream despite all the roadblocks reality has set in his way. Don Quixote would have wanted it that way.

behind-the-scene feature

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 1 December 2015]

Director Terry Gilliam tries to film the classic "Don Quixote de la Mancha" as his "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote". He struggles with financing and moves from Hollywood to Europe. It's a big production but the budget is scaled back from $40 to $32 million. Jean Rochefort is playing Don Quixote joined by Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis. As the production gets going, problems mount and the filming process sputters.

This is basically a behind-the-scenes featurette that would be included in the DVD if the movie actually was made. Except this is much better. It's not all sunshine and roses. It shows the struggles and tribulations of a real visionary under the stress of the real world. The material is not quite as epic as "Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse" but it's still quite compelling.

tales from the film-making file...one of the most enlightening documentaries I've seen in years

[Quinoa1984 · 10/10 · 27 March 2005]

Lost in La Mancha was not the sour, totally unfortunate documentary I expected. I knew before I saw the film about a year and a half ago that Terry Gilliam (maverick writer/director/animator/actor from the Monty Python clan) attempted an ambitious film from Don Quixote and it became one of the most notorious stories of a production under a black cloud of bad luck. But what I didn't expect was that the film would really be just an exemplary, honest account of what it takes to make a film. Make no mistake about it, film-making is just difficult work a lot of the time, and a completely collaborative effort where everything has to look right, sound right, be pre-planned to death, and of course the production team (when not in a studio, and out in the wilderness) is at the mercy of nature. Take a look at Orson Welles' career if one should doubt that (a director who, by the way, also attempted his own personal, avant-garde take on Don Quixote, and couldn't finish the film after working on it over the course of almost thirty years).

That The Man Who Killed Don Quixote was (err, is, so to speak) a Gilliam film, the artistic desires are bold and visionary, and a challenge in and of itself. There is the constant factor of money and financing the production that comes into play. All of these factors are explored in this film, and it's actually bitter-sweet, going back and forth until the last twenty minutes or so of the film. One can say that this is one of the most important films about film ever made, the kind of documentary that should be seen by all film students (whether or not you like Gilliam's other films or Johnny Depp or whoever) to see what the film-making process entails once a script is finished.

As the audience, we're taken through the pre-production first, as one learns about what Gilliam and his co-writer Tony Grisoni changed around with the classic Cervantes story. This time, a commercial director, played by Depp, gets sent back in time or to some sort of odd time where Don Quixote, played by Jean Rochefort, mistakes Depp for Sancho Panza, his dwarfish sidekick, then the rest of the film mostly features their adventures through parts of the book's wild stories of Quixote's imagination. Then one learns at what lengths he had to go through to get the film made, on his third try in ten years (no money in America sent him to Europe, where his budget of 32 million was tremendous for European standards). While casting and set/prop/costume designs go fine, one is informed about Gilliam's past ventures in film-making in a brilliant little animated scene (of Gilliam's design perhaps), as a director who's films, aside from the supposed shame that was Baron Munchausen, have been risky artistic gambles by mostly Hollywood studios that have made money and critical acclaim.

So there is that one factor of Lost in La Mancha that works very well- Gilliam is shown as a man of wild, but cool demands, with a specific vision and a compatible crew. "He's a responsible infant terrible, if that makes sense," one producer remarks. After the pre-production gets under-way (with one particularly funny scene where a camera test goes on with a group of bulky giants), the production team starts off their first week of filming. This is when, as one might say, the plot thickens. In the first week Gilliam and his crew get all of perhaps less than a minute of usable footage, as a series of catastrophes come down on them: The extras haven't been rehearsed. The location has been, unwittingly, placed close to a air force base where the planes make terrible noise up above. There is what Gilliam calls almost a 'biblical' thunderstorm that halts production as parts of yhe equipment are flooded, and the nearby locales and mountains have been changed of their original, striking color (not to mention, no sun). Then, the biggest blow, with seventy year old Rochefort, as a tragedy slowly becomes evident with his health.

It is a depressing last twenty minutes of film, but it is still fascinating how it becomes clear that the production will not go on. Certain things are sometimes just not as simple as one might figure with making a film. You got to have the money. You have to follow the contracts. An insurance company comes into play. The assistant director Phil Patterson, who has attempted to make damage control throughout the production, decides to quit instead of being fired. And when it seems as if the film will not get made, Gilliam's rights to the script are out of his hands (in that time, which has likely changed in five years).

But what finally becomes the captivating center of the film is Gilliam and (not to make it sound overtly pretentious) the director as a kind of metaphor for the human condition. Is it better to be someone who takes chances and tries to reach for heights that are sometimes un-attainable (like the film within this film's subject, Don Quixote), or be an average, hack of a director that listens more to producers demands than ones own? This in an underlying theme in Lost in La Mancha, and it makes for the kind of story that could have never been written.

Good, but doesn't live up to the hype on the DVD cover.

[Volstag · 7/10 · 7 June 2004]

Lost in La Mancha details the array of problems director Terry Gilliam encountered during the (pre) production of "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote". While this documentary is certainly interesting, it's nowhere close to being "tragic" or "fantastically funny" -- as advertised on the DVD cover.

There's really nothing that tragic, or sad, about the difficulties they encountered. To me, the problems encountered by Gilliam and Co. can be accurately described as "a very bad day at work" -- nothing more, nothing less. There were no deaths, mutilations, kidnappings, etc. Also, there wasn't anything particularly funny about the documentary either -- there's a couple chuckles, here and there, but definitely don't expect any sidesplitting laughter.

Where the documentary does shine, IMO, is that it allows the viewer a candid "behind the scenes" look at life on a movie set. We get to meet the assistant director(s), the cinematographer, the costume designers, etc. We get to see the meetings, the discussions of the time-tables, test screenings, shooting schedules, set design and construction, etc.

* Spoilers *

In the end, the production was hampered by the following: Financing troubles, inability to get the cast on set, set problems (unexpected rain storms, military aircraft flying around (when they weren't supposed to be)), the main character's double-herniated disc prevents him from riding a horse and, of course, insurance problems. I think the "financing troubles" and the "insurance problems" were, by far and away, the most difficult obstacles for Mr. Gilliam to get around -- and, as far as I know, he's _still_ battling these problems (with regards to this movie).

So, in the end, Lost in La Mancha is an interesting look at the travails involved with producing a movie -- but not much more than that. As mentioned in a previous comment, I thought this would have been better presented as an hour, hour and a half, program on television.

Ideally, I would rate this documentary a 6.5, but since IMDB doesn't allow fractional votes, I've rated it a 7 (out of respect to Mr. Gilliam -- who _has_ made some darn fine movies in his career).

Brilliant Documentary Of A Director's Worst Nightmare

[Gazzer-2 · 9/10 · 6 February 2003]

Filmmaker & Monty Python alumni Terry Gilliam has dreamed for years of making a movie about Don Quixote. He finally got the chance to make his dream movie, "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote," in 2000, starring Johnny Depp and, in the title role of Don Quixote, French actor Jean Rochefort. But due to budget problems, shooting schedule problems, horrible weather problems, and the unfortunate ill health of actor Rochefort, the production was a disaster from the word go. After only 6 days of troubled shooting, "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" was completely abandoned.

Fortunately, out of the wreckage of Terry Gilliam's never-finished film comes "Lost In La Mancha," a brilliant documentary that captures everything that went wrong with the movie, from the first eight weeks of pre-production (which wasn't smooth sailing either) to the disastrous six-day shoot that followed. We see both sides to Gilliam throughout the movie---one minute he's giddy with delight at making his dream movie, the next minute he's blowing his obscenity-laden top over his project collapsing all around him. And it's not just Gilliam who suffers, as *everyone* involved with the movie, both in front of & behind the camera, gets dragged down right along with him as all hell breaks loose on the doomed production.

Watching "Lost In La Mancha" is not only fascinating, but it's also very educational, giving the viewer a first-hand look at what goes on behind the scenes of mounting a movie, including all of the business aspects involved such as financing & other professional agreements that have to be made before a single frame is shot. It's also a sad documentary to watch, too. Looking at all the terrific hardware, costumes and set pieces that were created for the movie (including marvelous life-size marionette puppets that can march in perfect synchronicity), plus the widescreen footage of the scant few scenes Gilliam shot before the production was shut down, the viewer is given a genuine glimpse of the movie that *might* have been, and is all the more saddened---and sympathetic with Gilliam & his team---because of it.

Happily, though, all is not lost for "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" just yet. Terry Gilliam is reportedly preparing for a second attempt at shooting the movie, and, having seen the movie's potential in this excellent documentary, I wish Gilliam all the best in the world in finally bringing his Don Quixote movie to the big screen. Judging by the glimpses of it in "Lost In La Mancha," I definitely believe it will be a truly great movie. :-)

The Dark Side of Film-making

[shiftyeyeddog · 7/10 · 4 July 2007]

I love Gilliam films. I love Depp. I love Don Quixote. All this adds up to great frustration in seeing their Quixote film crash and burn. Will we ever see it on screen? Who knows. Maybe someday. But this documentary gives a great glimpse into what might have been, and makes a great counter-story to the in-depth Episode I and X-Men DVD making-of documentaries that showed how a successful film comes together. This one shows the darker side of film-making and what can happen when all goes awry.

Very interesting, if completely frustrating to be teased with such a perfect group on a project that may never be completed.

brilliant and remarkable documentary

[dactylgyrl · 10/10 · 7 June 2006]

Being a fan of anything Don Quixote related I was thrilled to hear that Terry Gilliam was making a movie, especially when I found out that Johnny Depp was attached. I was somewhat puzzled when time went on and I heard nothing about the film. I don't even remember how I found out about the documentary but, though saddened that apparently the movie had fallen though, I was delighted to be able to have an opportunity to experience some movie making magic, Gilliam style.

I must say that upon watching the documentary I became saddened by the thought that this apparently delightful and amazing film would never be finished. Depp seems to be his same fabulous self and Rochefort as Quixote would have been delightful. The bits that we actually get to see of the movie are fun to watch. It is terrible that anyone would be plagued by such horrendous bad luck at the crew of this movie was.

For anyone who is a fan of Gilliam's work and is in anyway interested in the behind the scenes parts of the film industry, this is a very enlightening little film. It was interesting, even for someone not a part of the industry, to see the process and work involved.

My wish for Gilliam is that he will some day be able to make his spectacular movie. If I had the money I would gladly finance the effort myself. Huzzah, Terry! Keep up the good work, we wish you well.

LOST IN LA MANCHA (Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe, 2002) ***

[Bunuel1976 · 7/10 · 6 May 2007]

This could well be the first "making of" documentary of an unreleased film: after three false starts, there were only six shooting days on the ill-fated production of that which would have been THE MAN WHO KILLED DON QUIXOTE. Cervantes' epic novel is right up Terry Gilliam's alley as his own continuing obsession with this particular project is nothing if not Quixotic. For what it's worth, the choice of actors (Jean Rochefort and Johnny Depp) is inspired and the snippets of the shot footage shown in the documentary is promising – although I'm not so sure about Gilliam's idea to make Depp a 21st Century Sancho Panza. Well, everything that can go wrong for a film-maker seems to do so to Gilliam and on camera to boot (unacceptable contracts, constant delays due to the unavailability of actors, sudden and disastrous weather changes, unsatisfactory props, financial backers dropping out, etc); one can literally view the maverick director's enthusiasm at the start being drained away as the film progresses.

The 'Curse of Quixote' theory is perhaps a valid one: after all, no less a film-maker than Orson Welles tried to mount his own production in the late 1950s and kept vainly working at it practically until his death; it remains unfinished to this day and is only available on French and Spanish DVD in a version compiled by none other than Jess Franco! However, one must recall that another major film artist, G.W. Pabst, made three(!) film versions of the story simultaneously in the early 1930s (two of which, in French and English, are also available on R1 DVD), even if they are not highly-regarded among his films. In any case, the most satisfying version out there is the 1957 Russian one (which I watched many years ago on Italian TV) and, of course, even a journeyman director like Arthur Hiller managed to successfully transfer the musical version of Quixote, MAN OF LA MANCHA (1972), from Broadway onto celluloid.

In conclusion, LOST IN LA MANCHA is both a candid look at Gilliam's modus operandi and a real eye-opener to budding film-makers on the perils of being an artist in a commercial industry. Having said that, one can only admire Gilliam's undaunted resolve because, despite the claims of reckless extravagance leveled against him on THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN (1989) and his catastrophic Quixote enterprise, he eventually bounced back in fine form with the equally elaborate THE BROTHERS GRIMM (2005). On a more personal note, I was surprised and amused to see Ray Cooper featured in the documentary and described as a close personal friend of Gilliam's, since I had seen Mr. Cooper flamboyantly drumming away at Jim Capaldi's tribute concert in London last January!

Hillaroius

[prodayproduction · 9/10 · 10 October 2019]

Funny and educational. I love documentaries and this one is a classic!

The windmills of your mind

[Prismark10 · 6/10 · 17 February 2017]

Terry Gilliam has a bittersweet experience with Hollywood. Forever given a relative meagre budget that does not do justice with his visual ambitions and always having to compromise in his storytelling.

Lost in La Mancha was intended to be a big budget European funded film that would be an updated adaptation of the Don Quixote story. Watching Gilliam here, it strikes you that he looks like a thinner version of Orson Welles, a filmmaker who himself had problems making his own version of the story some decades ago.

Gilliam got veteran French actor Jean Rochefort for the central role, he spent months learning English and he could ride a horse but he also suffered from ill health just as soon as filming began. To attract the younger crowd and guarantee funding, Johnny Depp also agreed to appear in this film but his shooting was restricted because the extras had not gone through rehearsals.

This documentary about the making of the aborted film is all that survives of 'The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.' A cursed production hit by foul weather in the Spanish desert and then the illness of the star. The allocated budget had little margin for error and they were behind after the first week of filming.

At one point Gilliam is called Captain Chaos, but he just solemnly looks out to the horizon as he figures how to deal with the latest calamity. Even the studios hired in Madrid is just a warehouse with bad acoustics.

The documentary is a study of how films are made and how disaster can easily strike. Yet one cannot help feeling, especially as we see the scenes with the 'giants' which Gilliam thinks is fantastic that maybe he himself got a lucky escape from a film that was likely to get a critical mauling.

CUT CUT CUT

[kevin c · 3/10 · 10 January 2004]

This film is sometimes painful to watch, and amusing from time to time. Gilliam has done much good work, but frankly you wonder how. He never seems in control, and seems to put his head in the sand (mud).

You leave fully aware of the demands placed upon low budget and independent sector directors, and it's amazing they ever complete a film.

Impossible Dream?

[sparklecat · 7 January 2004]

"The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" has the makings of a brilliant film. It's a twisted take on Cervantes from the mind of director Terry Gilliam, starring Jean Rochefort, Johnny Depp, and Vanessa Paradis. The only problem is that the film has not been made. It REFUSES to be made.

Filmmakers Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe initially set out to chronicle Gilliam as he made his quixotic dream come true. Instead they captured the floods, bombings, and various "acts of God" that shut the movie down. The result is "Lost in La Mancha", a documentary about a courageous but capsizing production. It works because by presenting Gilliam's story, Fulton and Pepe also illustrate the joy and pain that all filmmakers experience to some degree. We often witness Gilliam's frustration, but we also see his delight when his vision briefly comes to life.

One is left with a new appreciation for the daring movies that do make it through production, as well as some hope for the completion of "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote". Gilliam is depicted as a dreamer, not a failure. "Lost in La Mancha" is an enjoyable celebration of those who tilt at windmills.

One lime

[strike-1995 · 7/10 · 3 March 2019]

A great insight to the calamitous pressure cooker that is pre-production and production. God help anyone who wants it for a career.

Great Docu on the UnMaking of a Movie

[kino1969 · 8/10 · 13 December 2011]

Even in its length, I wanted to see more.

Yes, Gilliam has the "Cimino Curse," but it is unwarranted. This documentary shows his "madness," but it is no more than that of other directing legends (Kubrick comes to mind). What happens to Gilliam is NOT his fault. If not, very little is. As the filmmakers keep repeating, "Munchausen, Munchausen, Munchausen." This documentary shows its audience all of the problems with making movies. It isn't as easy as many think. Gilliam and others do as much as they can to get the movie made, but flight training overhead, storms, and medical problems are always sprouting. I remember the good days of making student movies. For me, it was just terrible. Everything had to fit into a perfect line: timetables, money, actors, crew, sets. Hollywood just throws everything to some talentless hack, but those directors who have talent are constantly fighting any and all problems that arise. Does that make them eccentric? No. It makes them hard workers with a true love for the art of cinema.

That being said, this documentary shows the problems with film making. Extremely insightful and well done. To boot, the narration is given to Bridges.

8 of 10, mostly for it feeling too brief! 9 of 10 for the DVD with the Salman Rushdie interview, which is MUST SEE! ----- E.

Lost in La Mancha: 6/10

[movieguy1021 · 6/10 · 2 March 2003]

Lost in La Mancha is an interesting documentary that doesn't seem to be fit for the big screen. It's about former Monty Python guy and now director Terry Gilliam's attempt to make a comedy about Don Quixote. It's been in his mind for a decade, and now he's deciding to do something about it.

Of course, nothing is that easy. First, he can't get any financing in Hollywood, so he goes to Spain to shoot, and needs a budget of around $40 million. He gets $32 million. Despite all of those, there's some that isn't their fault. An airplane flies over a shoot that's supposed to take place a long time ago. There's a torrential rain storm, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

I don't really know much about the story of Don Quixote, but I'm a huge Python fan, so I decided this was worth a look. I enjoyed it, but it isn't the 4-star masterpiece that the papers make it to believe. Carrie Rickey of the Philadelphia Inquirer calls it `sad, funny'. I didn't really find it sad or heartbreaking, nor did I really crack up. Sure, I laughed when I saw the `giants', but I wasn't rolling on the floor laughing (which two of the three Monty Python movies made me do). I felt bad for Gilliam, but that was about it.

I've never been a huge documentary fan, but if used effectively, I can tolerate it. This blended the right amount of interviews and narration to make it work. I, however, think this would have been better as a one-hour IFC channel documentary or a special feature on the DVD on something. Ironically, Gilliam is using the money raked in from this movie to fund another attempt of Don Quixote. Maybe this'll be a bonus feature on that DVD.

It didn't look phony, thank goodness. Sometimes, you can tell when these are fake, but this was genuine. I was mad, however, that only the crew members were interviewed, and not actors supposed to be in the film, such as Johnny Depp (whom I was never a huge fan of, but it would have been interesting to see his take). It didn't get off topic or anything, except I wish we could have seen a little more of the actual film.

There's not really that much more to say about Lost in La Mancha. It's worth a peek, but really nothing to get your hopes up about.

My rating: 6/10

Rated R for language.

Fans of this movie: Check Out "Hearts of Darkness"

[21bostoncalifornia · 9/10 · 22 November 2003]

Most of what I would say about "Lost in La Mancha" has already

been said here. It is a fascinating look behind the scenes of movie

making. It is emotional and tragic. I hope someday Terry Gilliam is

able to make his movie. And I agree with another poster here that

maybe John Cleese should play Don Quixote, as a favor for his old

Monty Python pal. Or maybe Jean Rochefourt will get bettter? (He

is still alive, isn't he?)

My main point in writing this is to recommend to anyone who

enjoyed this movie to see "Hearts of Darkness" a documentary in

a very similar vein about another movie that was doomed by

budget overruns and disasters, both human and natural. That film

was "Apocalypse Now" and although it did eventually get finished,

it almost didn't. I'm sure all you movie buffs have already seen it,

but for anyone who hasn't, go rent it today. It is immensely

informative and entertaining.

Certainly Interesting

[Theo Robertson · 7/10 · 22 May 2005]

LOST IN LA MANCHA may not be in the same league as HEARTS OF DARKNESS ( The documentary that gives the inside story of the making of APOCALYPSE NOW ) but it's certainly entertaining and stands as a very good example of how not to produce a movie . I may make myself unpopular for saying this but didn't the people involved deserve everything they got ?

Terry Gilliam decides he's going to direct a movie called THE MAN WHO KILLED DON QUIXOTE , it's going to feature windmills , giants and some old self deluded bloke from Spain . Perhaps not the greatest plot for a movie but Johnny Depp is cast as the eponymous man so I guess Gilliam got that bit right since Depp has massive box office appeal . With hindsight that's the only thing Gilliam has done right because he soon finds himself having to use what is probably the worst sound stage in Europe since it's the only one available . Things move from bad to worse when Gilliam finds himself with no one to play Don Quixote on the first day of filming and when they finally cast the actor in the part they realise that the only place that location filming can take place is being used by NATO aircraft for training exercises . It's kind of difficult to have a story set in the 16th century when F-16s are flying over head all day . Things move from worse to even worse when a lot of equipment floats away in a flash flood . What else can go wrong you ask ?

This is highly entertaining but no one on the production deserves any sympathy . Didn't the producer research what sound stages would be available during filming ? Didn't he research locations and find one that wasn't being used by NATO or suffered from flash floods ? Couldn't he have cast an elderly actor ( A senor citizen ? ) as Quixoite before shooting was due to begin ? These are the faults of the producer rather than the director but Gilliam isn't entirely blameless himself but perhaps his major fault is that he's too much of a nice guy , he never gets angry and treats every setback with a wry smile which isn't perhaps an attribute for a movie director , compare his manner with Francis Ford Coppola while making APOCALYPSE NOW . As I said this is a perfect example - And a very entertaining one too - on how not to make a movie

The capturing of an extraordinary disintegration of a dream.

[jesse3 · 10/10 · 30 September 2003]

This film is the capturing of an extraordinary disintegration of a dream. For those who have never planned the making of a film (which very much resembles a military excersize where diverse forces have to converge on a given point at exactly the right moment, otherwise everything around you can easily collapse) this is a filmmaker's must. Lou Pepe' and Keith Fulton knocked it out of the park. I would rather watch this documentary for the 5th time then just about everything that is playing around town at this moment. Great work!

Movies like this don't come along too often

[Rand-McNally · 7/10 · 6 March 2003]

So I saw "Lost in La Mancha" last night which was good, not great. I don't think it should be tops on all these critic's lists like it has been lately, but it is very interesting and there are a lot of positive things going on in the movie. I think a lot of critics don't know what to do when they see a documentary movie like this. I thought that maybe this would be something better suited for an hour long special on IFC or TLC or something. I give it *** out of **** stars. "La Mancha" comes off looking like a television show some of the time. The footage that they do show you lets the viewer know that this movie was going to be a Gilliam classic. Johnny Depp arguing with a fish, the giants, and the actor who plays Don Quixote are all things that come to mind. So pretty much all the footage they had looked excellent. Not having certain actors under contract within 4 weeks of filming, using military training grounds, the rain washing out everything, airplanes flying overhead, an awful sound stage, and the French actor who plays Quixote coming down with a slew of medical problems are all things that hinder and eventually halt production on "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote". Watching it you get the feeling that this movie was going to be up there with "Brazil" and "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" in terms of Gilliam greatness. Watching Terry Gilliam's face as he realizes he has failed in making the movie is sad but it does end on a high point. Gilliam refuses to give up and vows much like Orson Welles did to finish his Quixote film. He plans to use revenue from this film to help get "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" back off the ground. Hopefully Gilliam will prove to be more successful than Welles was.

I recommend this film to anyone who is interested in how a movie is put together, the works of Gilliam, the works of Monty Python alums, and in Miguel De Cervantes book "Don Quixote". It is also interesting to see the many parallels between Quixote and Gilliam. This movie is his windmill that he still hasn't defeated, let's hope he does.

A Must See!

[don-johns · 10/10 · 14 February 2016]

As a producer/director this is film school at it's very best! If you are thinking about making movies, this is a must see for a first time film maker or a seasoned pro. See how much work goes into making movies and how you have to have backup plans for each phase of your production. I've watched this so many times and come away with something different each time. Excellent, excellent piece of work of transparency in film making. The hardest part in watching this is seeing the expressions of director Terry Gilliam go from complete joy to complete despair as things spiral out of control. I've always been a huge believer in preproduction and this film shows the importance in a way that I could never talk about, you see it on film! I think it took a lot for the director to allow himself to have been so open as we see him go through one situation after another.

If Only

[devonblue · 5/10 · 29 November 2009]

This is a rather sad story of the making of Don Quixote, the film that was beset by disasters both by the forces of nature and by human error. Everyone put so much effort into this film, but it seems the film was cursed.

I have rated it lower than usual as it depressed me to see the faces of those who fought to keep the film alive only to see it fail at every hurdle.

Good film within a film of a film, glad to have seen it only to find out how difficult it must be to make cinema for us all.

5/10, although I would love to see it remade and completed :)

Windmills of reality

[RResende · 11 June 2018]

I came to this after watching the finally finished Gilliam's Quijote. It probably works better to watch this one, the "sketch", the "failed attempt", after you saw the finished product.

That film, the finished one, is imperfect and chaotic. And that's good. It it as a film, what it was as a work in progress. It reveals Gilliam, and has a special place in his carrer. It's the final product of an obsession, and it follows the path of its very theme.

This one is nice, because we see in it some of the anchors that were kept in the later finished film, and that would probably have worked better in the original, at least from a cinematic point of view. It is clear that Gilliam had in mind the replacement of the "book layers" of the original Quijote by the layers of films in films. In other words, he wanted a world where several layers of paralel realities would affect each other, contaminate them, blur them. This is something he has been doing all his life as a filmmaker, and as such it is apt that he adapts Quijote.

In the book, at least in my reading, Sancho is the pivot, he is the articulation of all the layers, the one that keeps all the madness tolerable, and the one who places us, the "viewers" in the narrative. So having Johnny Depp play that role would have been magnificient. We can only imagine how it would have been, watching the few conversations between Gilliam and Depp in this documentary, watching the short bits of footage that were recorded (the fish fight is amazing) and trying to imagine Depp whenever we see Driver.

I got the impression that Depp was the one who suggested what is in fact the beginning of the new film. At least the breaking of the 4th wall in the matter of "la nuit américaine". That shows he understands the layers. He is a very fine actor.

Take this little film as a piece of a grander puzzle in the mind of an interesting guy. A Quijote film will probably always be better as a sum of bits and pieces, chaos and unreachable goals... This fits. I had a little too much of burocracy (whose fault, who's gonna pay, who should have done what...) and too little of Gilliam's mind. But these documentaries almost always fall on that trap.

"The Man Who Killed Quijote" was the first film in 2018 that completes a seamingly "lost project". We'll likely get Welles' The Other Side of the Wind later this year.. Year for completions, and probably for disappointments. Welles also had an ongoing Quijote project for half his life. Ah, those windmills...