Lost in La Mancha

lostinlamancha

It’s a “making of” documentary about a film that was never completed. Terry Gilliam was trying to make a movie about Don Quixote, but everything that could go wrong does.

In case you don’t know, Terry Gilliam was part of Monty Python and has directed such good films like Brazil, Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Twelve Monkeys, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Meaning of Life, etc.

lostinlamancha_depp

He wanted to make a movie about Don Quixote. Watching this documentary makes you wish that you could watch the movie. You barely get to see any of it being filmed, which would have starred Johnny Depp, because everything in the world goes wrong. Big natural disasters such as a downpour in the desert changing the color of the light tan landscaping into dark brown and ruining all previously shot footage since it doesn’t match. Then there is the guy who was to play Don Quixote has prostrate trouble and can’t ride a horse for a few months. Huge windstorms come through the same desert and nothing can be shot when that is going on, wasting tons of time and money on people standing around waiting for nature to behave.

My one wish would be that the documentary was shorter. It wasn’t all that long but it did drag in points. I would have made a nice hour documentary special on television instead a 90-minute movie.

It did look really pretty and Don Quixote was one of my favorite stories I had to read for school. I would have loved to have seen this movie.

Rating: B+

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