Thursday, March 13, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Film: Failed Don Quixote is dynamically recounted in Lost in La Mancha

By Mike Prevatt

Miguel De Cervantes' 1605 classic Don Quixote features one of literature's most lovably hapless characters. In his journey to prove that chivalry is far from dead, Quixote gets caught up in the faulty wiring of his own thoughts. He never sees his idealism played out in reality, but what makes him so endearing is how determined and self-assured he remains, despite the calamity happening around and within him.

Director Terry Gilliam (the Monty Python films, Time Bandits, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) loved this about the character, too, and it's only canny that his own attempts to reinterpret the book would render him a modern-day Quixote. Or maybe not. Perhaps Gilliam foresaw the potential irony, and maybe that explains his request for filmmakers Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe (who worked with Gilliam in 1995 on The Hamster Factor, an acclaimed documentary on the director's successful sci-fi film, 12 Monkeys) to record the pre-production of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. It would be a documentary on how a film comes to life.

But in the end, Fulton and Pepe's Lost in La Mancha ends up depicting its death. And while you feel the tragedy in Gilliam's failure, you can't help but cheer for the documentarians' good fortune. Not only did they capture the project's every mishap, they weaved the footage into a compelling story about a man who's imagination pretty much gets the best of him--just like his hero Quixote.

Lost in La Mancha benefits the same way another engrossing documentary--last year's I Am Trying to Break Your Heart--did, by receiving carte blanche access to an artist creating something ambitious and imaginative, watching the ensuing drama unfold right before their eyes and recording all of it, cinema verite-style. And while I Am Trying's tortured genius--alternative rock band Wilco--managed to complete what would become its most celebrated work, Lost in La Mancha sets up the impending heartbreak early in the film. As the project spirals downward, each problem carries enough emotional weight for us to sympathize with Gilliam, whose ego and pretensions may just be the seeds of his fate.

Gilliam is known for his grandiose artistic vision, his penchants for deconstructing reality and exploring insanity, and his almost maddening fortitude. This helps explain why he was almost undone by his expensive 1989 film, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, as well as why that film--and others of his, including Brazil and Time Bandits--are such beloved cult classics. In Lost in La Mancha, you're in the moment of his imaginative realizations, which means bearing witness to the good and bad that comes with his creative drive. And so Fulton and Pepe's work never threatens to become a throwaway short HBO airs before Police Academy 6 comes on--or a DVD extra, for that matter.

In addition, we're used to watching a film in its final stages; it has been perfected in post-production before it's presented to us. To see a work break down makes the audience feel like voyeurs, watching what we shouldn't be allowed to see. As The Man Who Killed Don Quixote`s financiers and producers suggest crew terminations and, ultimately, the filming's suspension, we're privy to unsettling confrontations. This only adds to the movie's overall theme of naked tribulation.

One of the few redeeming scenes from the recent drama The Life of David Gale is one where Kevin Spacey's character, Mr. Gale, lectures to his students about how fantasies let us down once they are fulfilled, mainly because we always want more. Gilliam surrenders his lifelong dream the same way, wondering aloud that since he's already seen the film play out so many times in his head, "Is it better to leave it there?" The conclusion of Lost in La Mancha implies that Gilliam hasn't reconciled ambition with reality, but it's exactly that struggle that gives his work--and this emotionally gratifying account--both heart and depth.