LOST
IN LA MANCHA
Sunday 9th at 10.00 am
Tuesday 11th April at
8.30 pm
RUNNING TIME 90 MINUTES
RATED M
US
SYNOPSIS:
In September 2000, six days into the shooting of Terry Gilliam's
film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, production was abandoned.
Lost In La Mancha traces the disintegration of the project
Gilliam had planned for ten years and succeeded in financing
outside the Hollywood system. Despite a limited budget, inadequate
studio space in Madrid and the late arrival of stars Jean Rochefort,
Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis, Gilliam and his crew are determined
to start filming in the hope that momentum itself will solve
their problems. When a flash flood destroys sets and equipment
and Jean Rochefort is taken ill, the production slowly falls
apart and Gilliam must face the prospect of his dream remaining
unrealised.
Review by Richard Kuipers:
Here's the kind of behind-the-scenes documentary we'd really
like to see included in the bonus footage on DVD releases. Not
a shallow, back-slapping promotional but the real skinny on what
goes down when the studio lights go up. Lost In La Mancha is
proof that disorganisation and disaster in filmmaking respects
no budget or talent roster. It's one thing for the first-timers
depicted in the Australian documentary Making Venus to fail at
their first attempt (though their film did eventually creep out
onto screens) but here's a fully-fledged European co-production
(one of the most expensive to date) with master visionary Terry
Gilliam at the helm and experienced producers and technical staff
in support - and it still falls over. By particularly savage
irony the beneficiary of the demise of The Man Who Killed Don
Quixote is this very documentary which finds its fortunes raised
from TV broadcast and DVD-filler to a feature film with international
theatrical exposure. Gilliam may yet revive this project but
for now we can gasp in disbelief as a combination of appalling
luck and bad management scuttles this attempt. The footage is
incredibly intimate. Gilliam agreed to wear a radio microphone
at all times and what's captured in the heat of many a tense
moment will make you think of William Goldman's famous 'No-one
knows anything' quote as this Spanish tragedy takes place. There's
not enough surviving footage from the 6-day shoot to judge what
kind of film might have resulted but one can't also help imagining
that somewhere or other the ominous spirit of Baron Munchausen
(Gilliam's 1989 flop) was lurking around Madrid while the production
attempted to saddle up a sick and sorry Jean Rochefort as Don
Quixote. Not just a film for buffs, Lost In La Mancha offers
a fascinating microcosm of capitalism at its most faltering.
The means of production is in place (sort of) but entrepreneurial
skill is lacking. Capital equipment (leading man) has fallen
into disrepair and the shop stewards are leaving the floor. An
internal diseconomy of gigantic scale erupts. Great stuff.
Review by Andrew L. Urban:
This is a lively film, as optimistic in tone as Don Quixote is
in character. And Terry Gilliam is a bright, expansive and
enthusiastic filmmaker, a likeable, charismatic guy who jokes
about having a budget of US$31.5 million being “half the money
we need”. I especially like the bits in rehearsal where Gilliam
reads the Don Quixote role, and when they design the windmill
scene at the start of the film, when Don Quixote tilts at the
windmill with his lance, believing it to be a threatening giant.
Gilliam is enthused. His crew speak frankly about Gilliam and
his filmmaking style being “overloaded” or being like riding
a wild pony. And all that is recorded before the film falls
over, while they think they are making a doco to go on the
DVD. Intimate, honest confessions come out. At one point, Gilliam
is driving to a location, and he laughs as he prophetically
announces that “there is a lot of potential for chaos here”.
Chaos surely follows. It’s a fascinating and honest insight
and deserves to succeed, as a sort of consolation for the failure
of the production. Tempting to speculate that fate has played
a trump card on Gilliam’s hand, symbolic of the subject matter.
Tilting at windmills, indeed.
Source: www.urbancinefile.com.au
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