The Impossible Dream (Lost In La Mancha (DVD))

Member Name: ruth_cole

Product:	Lost In La Mancha (DVD)
Date:	27/09/04 (112 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: brilliant, heartbreaking, intelligent

Disadvantages: what disadvantages?

For over a decade Terry Gilliam, erstwhile Monty Python animator and famed director of offbeat films (Twelve Monkeys, Brazil), cherished close to his heart the dream of making a film based on the trials and tribulations of Cervantes’ Don Quixote.

He had a script, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, based around the notion of a greedy ad exec stumbling back in time and being mistaken for Quixote’s bucolic sidekick, Sancho Panza. He had the stars (Jean Rochefort, Johnny Depp, Vanessa Paradis), he had the Spanish location and finally, he had the pre-production underway.

So far, so hopeful.

On the set of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote were Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe. Tracking Gilliam’s generally chaotic film-making style, unobtrusively filming meetings and being granted access-all-areas, they began to document what turned out to be the most dramatic (and heartbreaking) un-making of documentary ever committed to film.

Even in pre-production, things were looking a bit shaky… It was impossible to contact Johnny, Vanessa was constantly unavailable (though quite what she’s been doing since Joe Le Taxi other than having Johnny’s babies, I’m not quite sure). Jean Rochefort was starting to show signs of illness… as if his being unwell wasn’t enough, the illness in question (prostate problems) caused him to be unable to sit on a horse, something fairly central to the role of Rosinante’s rider.

Things were looking fraught anyway, because of the tightest filming schedule under the most restrictive budget; entirely European financing meant a budget of $32m, half what was technically needed. But the assistant director put together a schedule that would keep them to budget assuming there was no need to deviate one iota from the plan.

And that was BEFORE the flood.

Lost In La Mancha can be described in a handful of words: heartbreaking, tantalising, revealing.

Let’s start with heartbreaking. Watching the endless waves of bad luck sweep across such a visionary production, washing away years of imagination and work, is almost too painful to watch. The documentary makers are careful to document in an almost clinical style. Although their shots are sympathetically close up and interestingly framed (a slumped Gilliam on his sofa blocking half the frame with his waggling toes), they steer clear of tearjerking music, gratuitously lingering shots of things falling apart… In fact, they have a healthy dose of humour about it (the investors marching in slo-mo onto the set). And it’s this terrible, sympathetic humanity of approach that lets us into the heart of the people involved in the creativity, and makes our appreciation of the catastrophe that much more acute.

The only thing that stops it being a complete tearjerker is the clever structure. In the middle, narrator Jeff Bridges takes us through an animated history of Gilliam’s reputation (one that foundered dramatically on the financial rocks of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen). Animators Stefan Avalos and Chaim Bianco have borrowed Gilliam’s Python style and added their own twists, and as such this is perfectly complementary to proceedings. Considered as a whole the film seems one long, inevitable, sympathetic shrug, peppered with twinkly music, frank documentary style and warm, affectionate incredulity at the extraordinary run of bad luck.

What about tantalising? Well, the tiny snippets of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote and the plentiful shots of all the pre-production in the form of costume and set (as well as the terrible shots of it all being packed away) all suggest that had the film not shuddered to a grinding halt a mere six days into shooting, it would have been a corker. The little of Rocheforte and Depp’s performances committed to film were enough to suggest a wonderful cinematic triumph, and the screen tests for the windmill giants enough to have me literally shaking with laughter. Gilliam’s directorial style, full of imaginative lunacy, has him leaping around the set, hooting, shouting, bitching, grinning… the whole gamut of emotional investment, which makes him a pleasure to watch in action (if probably a nightmare to work with).

And finally revealing… Well, let’s just say I’ve been through a few school plays in my time, and the bitching, cliques, scapegoat searching and generally faffing about were nothing on these, erm, adults. A pivotal scene in which the future of the lone voice of reason, the first assistant director, is discussed, just cuts through the machinations of the movie making process and spills the guts out all over the table, and it’s not pretty.

How could I do anything but recommend this extraordinary piece of filmmaking? The DVD format in which I viewed it also includes a decent package of extras. This includes the theatrical trailer (beginning with those tantalising glimpses of what should have been), and two long interviews with “lunatic” Gilliam and Depp (the latter of which showcases the man to be, indeed, slightly stoned and lacking in the charisma with which he so skilfully invests his characters). There are also interesting storyboards that depict the film that could have been, yet another teasing glimpse. All in all a pretty generous package.

To sum up:

Beg, borrow, steal.

Always good deals at play.com, do take a look… I got it for £6.

Alex
xxx

(yes... I gave up on the film ABC... easy as 123...)

Summary: