Terry Gilliam's Unfinished Opus

LOST IN LA MANCHA (2002)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I remember being a cameraman's assistant during the Zozobra Festival, an annual event in Santa Fe, New Mexico. There was live music and food, and it went on for many hours. After it was all over, the TV director who helped to direct it for live TV was visibly upset. It was a disappointment for whatever reason. Maybe she didn't get all the shots she had hoped for, who knows. But that glazed look of disappointment is exactly what you see in director Terry Gilliam's face in the fascinating and upsetting documentary, "Lost in La Mancha."

Terry Gilliam, the former Monty Python member who made movies with big, fantastical ideas and epic, profound visuals that no one else could conjure in films ranging from "Brazil" to "12 Monkeys," is seen on working on his latest project, "The Man who Killed Don Quixote," a labor of love he had been trying to adapt for ten years. A 32 million dollar budget has been approved with European investors (Hollywood turned its back on it). Costumes are designed, sets are constructed, actors are hired, and everything seems to be in working order. A French actor named Jean Rochefort has been hired to play Don Quixote, and he looks the part and has learned enough English to do it justice. Johnny Depp has been hired to play a hero from the future who plays the part of Sancho Panza. Three actors are hired to play giants. As I said before, this production looks good and practically classic Gilliam.

Problems arise on the first day shooting in the desert where fighter jets are in the skies, the extras have not rehearsed their roles, bad weather leads to flooding, etc. Gilliam gets bewildering stares when he asks if the production's equipment is insured. Rochefort is clearly uncomfortable due to possible prostate pain and has to fly back to France to see a doctor. Delays continue and, after all the investors come to visit a scene near a waterfall with Depp mouthing off to a dead fish, a pervading feeling of doom settles in. Will Rochefort be able to come back and continue his Don Quixote role? Is this all the assistant director's fault?

A lot of this is engrossing material and, almost simulatenously, perplexing - why didn't Gilliam seek to replace Rochefort or why not keep shooting whatever scenes were needed without Rochefort? Also, despite the fact that Depp was not the blockbuster star he became until "Pirates of the Caribbean" when this movie was shot, why not take the time-travel concept further, rewrite it a little and introduce a new character played by Depp or maybe Marlon Brando? There are many what-ifs in this scenario - for a hefty budget, the production could've been remedied without being shut down or maybe the Europeans are less forgiving than Hollywood when things go wrong and the budget increases. I sense there is more to this documentary that we are not seeing.

"Lost in La Mancha" serves as food for thought on the logistics of what can go wrong with the shooting of a big-budget movie. But there are too many questions and not enough answers as to the film's unfortunate shutdown. Orson Welles once tried to make a Don Quixote movie with the added plot of a director trying to make a movie about the subject. Gilliam could have done the same, without documenting just his frustration.