Lost in La Mancha (2002)

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.

This is a brilliant idea for a documentary. The film follows Terry Gilliam as he attempts to make the move "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote". While doing so everything that could go wrong does. You can actually feel the emotions the filmmakers are going through, especially when things start to go wrong. It actually gets kinda uncomfortable. Throughout the film they are kind enough to show us different story boards, script readings, and clips from this unfinished project. The film they are trying to make seems like it would be kinda interesting. It's just a shame that it was never finished. Time to wrap this review up. In the end this is a great film to watch if you wish to be a film director, and even if you don't it's still and enjoyable film so check it out.

Maverick filmmaker Terry Gilliam may have been the mastermind behind such great works as "Brazil" and "The Fisher King", but he created his largest, most brilliantly conceived undertaking to date with 2001's "The Man who Killed Don Quixote". Oh, wait. You've never heard of it? The stellar documentary "Lost in La Mancha" will present precisely why Gilliam's big budget indie flick went from one cataclysm to another without missing a beat. Like Orson Welles before him, Quixotic director Gilliam struggled against immovable and unpreventable odds to get his vision of Quixote to the screen, even after having put more than a full decade's work into it. The film that began as an on-set making of featurette soon blossoms into a movie-making parody no one bothered to pen. It could be said that independent film-making constitutes the bulk of the actual output of the 'film industry', and this documentary rings quite true of those struggling in the trenches of it. It's a wonderful crash course in film-making for those prepared to see the darker, sadder side of it.

One of the participants of this documentary (line producer? I can't remember) sums two facts up perfectly:a) If you tried to think of things that could go wrong on a film set, you still wouldn't come near to what actually happened. The flash flood is SPECTACULAR; watching a desert turn to a wall of water upon which props and film equipment float away is unbelievable. b) Gilliam tried to scale down what couldn't be scaled down. He was too desperate to put his vision on screen.Ultimately the film finishes as unsatisfyingly as its subject; there is no ending, and the conclusion to the events is in equal measures inevitable and unexciting (how could watching the insurance men be anything but).We eagerly await the sequel, Found in La Mancha, in which our heroes make the film and win every award on the planet for it.