Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
Fulton and Pepe's 2000 documentary captures Terry Gilliam's attempt to get The Man Who Killed Don Quixote off the ground. Back injuries, freakish storms, and more zoom in to sabotage the project.
Lost in La Mancha is a uniquely compelling document of cinematic disaster — watching Terry Gilliam's dream project unravel in real time gives it an almost tragic dramatic arc that no fiction could manufacture. Its novelty is exceptional: a making-of that becomes an un-making-of, a portrait of creative ambition crushed by fate. The cinematography is functional documentary work, nothing artistically distinguished, and the 'acting' category barely applies — the subjects are naturalistic and Gilliam is captivating but it's observational filmmaking. The ending, while sobering, is somewhat anticlimactic given the chaos that preceded it, though the open wound of an unfinished masterpiece lingers appropriately.