Film reviews - Lost in La Mancha

This film is based around the film that could never be made, the tale of Don Quixote. It is said to be a cursed film, a hex upon whoever tries to tell it's tale to fail and end up with nothing more than broken fragment's of ingredient's that go no farther than the bin. Contract's were unsigned, budgets were to be met, deadlines were to be made and nature discouraging the team spirit. All these thing's helped to ruin the adaptation of Don Quixote that Terry Gilliam would obsess over to become his filmic reality, however putting together this amusing film as a result.

All the film from the start is based within a Documentary style follow along with the crew, as if to be used for a DVD extra, yet innocently unaware that this is the main camera for their infamous success.  Nevertheless, Gilliam continued with his quest, but after a mere six days of shooting, Spanish Air Force jets ruined several takes, flash floods destroyed several sets, and as the Film project struggled to pursue a positive course the elderly Actor playing "Don Quixote" himself, Jean Rochefort, suffered from a severe back injury and could not continue for medical reasons. Rochefort's departure was enough to put the film on a Hiatus that sent the Film's pursuit into a fallen ending. We even see modern heart throb actor wonder boy "Johnny Dep" involved on the project, almost treated as a nervously handled pile of Gold as nothing else on the project was to give it any viewing substance. In many ways, Dep seems to be acting as himself, aware of being on a Camera even off set and has a flow about him that seems to depict a role even through a documentary of this kind. The use of Jean Rochefort was almost comparable to that of Ed Wood's obsession with his prized Bela Lugosi and in many way's this film reflects the same audience involvement as Tim Burton's adaptation to Ed's life in his own film based Biography on Ed's career. Interestingly enough that Johnny Dep played Ed and plays the role of a creators key to success within this awkwardly amusing piece of work.

Instead of realising this experience as a negative, they saw the amusing revelation that they had caught this catastrophe on camera for their film diary and that as this seemingly did not get caught up within the bad omen that the onlooked film suffered itself. If anything this caught the comedic element of how the film fell apart, giving the audience a heart warming look into the world of a man's masterpeice not developing exactly how he wishes to see it, yet laugh at his luck with a good spirit knowing it has worked out in it's own way.

Obviously, the Camera work is natural, not as if directed but brought on in a first person perspective, yet managing to not seem obvious amongst the crew that it is observing upon. The Camera picks up conversations and moment's of heightened emotion, all seemingly unaware of their action's becoming an unscripted movie. What you will come to understand about this approach is it simply becomes a film within a film, an onwards self reference that turns the original depiction into a new frame of outcome where the acting becomes real life and the experiences are real.

There is clever use of the footage collected, by turning it into usable scenes cut down and edited together on purpose to develop something filmic out of something that originally had no intent to be existent. You will on occasion notice the film steps out of itself to be narrating about how the experience was ongoing, how it should have been and where it went wrong, or consistently approaching the story of "Don Quixote" with an obsessive nature. It even on occasion indulges into 2D animations which daydream away from the reality into what could have been and is still merely a dream in the mind of its creator, a film full of restrained disappointment in what should have been Terry Gilliam's finest creation.

Chris Simmons