Lost in La Mancha

Terry Gilliam’s work had always had anarchy deep in its heart, and more than once anarchy has overwhelmed the project entirely. Certainly, our favorite hometown Python can say with some justification that his failures are more interesting than a lot of director’s successes. There is, in fact, a whole cottage industry devoted to chronicling his fights to keep his artistic vision and his films alive: The Battle For Brazil, Losing the Light and The Hamster Factor and Other Tales of 12 Monkeys. And now this wry documentary, a blow-by-blow account of Gilliam’s catastrophic attempt at Don Quixote. Gilliam’s the first to admit he thrives on disorder and brings much trouble on himself. But the windmill giants he contends with to make The Man Who Killed Quixote are too numerous even for a director nicknamed Captain Chaos: An infirm and incomprehensible lead actor, budget-smashing monsoons, and a shooting location a stone’s throw from a practice site for NATO bombers. And though it’s sad to see Gilliam’s inevitable abandonment of the project, at least this documentary means that somebody got a decent film out of the experience.