LOST IN LA MANCHA Available: C urrent Video : N/A Country: USA Distributor: Odeon Films Directors: Keith Fulton, Louis Pepe Running T ime: 89 min Rating: ON - AA AB - 14A "Making a film is essentially about two things: belief and momentum." Terry Gilliam Terry Gilliam first dreamt of making a film based on Don Quixote soon after completing the wonderfully zany THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN. At that time, he was suffering from what he has called "PMS" (Post Munchausen Syndrome), the fallout from the notorious 1989 production that cemented his reputation as a uncontrollable filmmaker. The proposed film would be called THE MAN WHO KILLED DON QUIXOTE and would tell the story of an arrogant ad executive (Johnny Depp, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS) who mysteriously stumbles into seventeenth-century Spain and meets Don Quixote (Jean Rochefort, READY TO WEAR). After a decade of development, production began in October 2000 - it was a fiasco. Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe's fascinating behind-the-scenes documentary, LOST IN LA MANCHA, follows Gilliam's doomed dream project from the final stages of pre- production through the first days of actual filming. Conveying a sense of QUIXOTE'S potential, LOST IN LA MANCHA is also a catalogue of crises: NATO jets buzzing over a seventeenth- century set; absent and injured star actors; fragile financing involving companies in England, Spain, France and Germany; and, underscoring the biblical proportions of it all, on the third day it rained — heavily. Watching Gilliam struggle with the problems of making a "studio-type" film with a relatively modest budget of $32 million, LOST IN LA MANCHA also serves as a compelling study of the clash between Hollywood's star-driven mode of production and a European model that serves the director. "It's a heavy film for European shoulders," producer Rene Cleitman ruefully suggests, noting the S5 million price tag of the average French film. Ultimately, Gilliam finds a soul mate in Quixote, a figure living by romantic ideals in a utilitarian society. "He's got to be sad and pathetic," the director suggests, "because it's all in his mind." LOST IN LA MANCHA beautifully captures the heartbreaking divide between a filmmaker's obsessions and the pragmatic realities of motion picture production. "... after watching the spectacular "LOST IN LAMANCHA," you may wish you'd had your jaw wired shut, since having it drop wide open so often could exhaust you. Mr. Gilliam is such a bizarre, magnetic and ultimately sympathetic figure that you'll find yourself wishing for a happy ending." Elvis Mitchell, New York Times " Their compelling fly-on-the-wall study, hilarious and heartbreaking at once, shows poor Mr. Gilliam’s visionary project disintegrating like a slow-motion car crash." Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian.