L'uomo che uccise Don Chisciotte

Not a masterpiece, not a disaster, The man who killed Don Quixote has the qualities and faults of what it is, that is to say, basically, a film for one spectator only : Terry Gilliam himself. Announcing its legend in the opening credits, the film takes pleasure in referring quite openly to the misadventures of Lost in La Mancha, most often through lines put in the mouth of the producer played by Stellan Skarsgard. These winks would be at best anecdotic, at worst narcissistic, if we didn't realize little by little that, we are in the presence of a true cinematic exorcism. Exorcism of this damned project, certainly. Exorcism also, through the character of Toby, of what Gilliam could have become if he had listened to the sirens of advertising and had become a soulless hack. Exorcism finally, and this is the most touching, of what Gilliam is afraid of becoming (and that he may have already become for some), that is to say an old fool who no longer interests anyone, an old dreamer in a materialistic world, a relic from another time, mocked and ridiculed. Thus, despite all its failures (problems of rhythm, lack of breath due to lack of money, episodic structure that works randomly and unfortunately makes Quixote disappear many times), we can only admire this film which bears on its face its testamentary dimension. Transmission, summary of a life, return on his youth, everything is there. Gilliam is Quixote, Gilliam is Toby, Gilliam will die but Gilliam is immortal since his dreams are forever with us on film. This is the bittersweet and somewhat crazy statement of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, a film about films, a story about stories, an endless dream.

The history of the making of this movie is ultimately more interesting than the movie itself. A disaster-prone adaptation of Don Quixote eventually gets made about a movie as a director sucked into the book's world. The script was rewritten, year after year, so it's surprising that the end result feels a little under-baked.

The film follows a director, Toby, who while filming the windmill scene from Don Quixote discovers a copy of a student film he made on the same topic. He goes in search of his actors, finds his lead has taken on the role permanently, and finds himself floating between reality and fantasy.

Toby is a fairly awful and destructive person, and to some extent the movie follows the trajectory of awful person gets a chance to look at his life. But that part isn't especially convincing. The movie is mainly notable for Jonathan Pryce's spirited take on Quixote, the decadence of the castle scenes, and the shifting realities. But while all these things are good on their own, they never quite fit into a cohesive drama. Joana Ribeiro is appealing as the damsel, but her motivations are murky and she always seems more plot device than fleshed-out character. And the ending is just lazy and unconvincing.

Parts of the movie are enjoyable, but at the end my reaction was a big "so what."

Gilliam's passion project sums up much of his filmography: it conveys almost all of the director's rs recurring tropes, themes and elements. It isn't an easy-to-enjoy film (mostly due to Gilliam's style), nonetheless an interesting film to watch, if not for else, because of its cursed fame.

Don Quixote is mainly about human madness, a theme Gilliam also explored in 'The Fisher King' and in 'Twelve Monkeys', two films from the time when the director started developing this movie. As for visuals, style, and the overwhelming sense of chaos that the third act conveys, it reminds of 'The Brothers Grimm' and more in particular of 'The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus', (coincidentally two films that also had, on lower scale, a troubled production). 'The Zero Theorem' and 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' are the only Gilliam films I found to be devoid of any direct connection with Don Quixote.

Adam Driver and Jonathan Pryce pull off memorable performances. I was pretty sure about Pryce succeeding, but didn't expect Driver to be this good, especially towards the end.

Frankly, I think this film was a bit underrated. It's true that Gilliam's post-'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' generally had little critical acclaim, but I personally couldn't find anything to complain about, or better, I couldn't find anything arguable that isn't a recurring element in Gilliam's cinema: a chaotic third act, a bittersweet ending, and so on. I enjoyed watching Don Quixote, but I can imagine most of the viewers to find it either uninteresting, dull, chaotic or 'pretentious'.

Don Quixote might be Gilliam's last film. With 'The Zero Theorem' he closed his dystopia Sci-fi trilogy, now he has finally finished the film he probably was most eager to complete, so it seems to me that there are no narratives left that he intends to explore. Let's just hope that I am wrong, and Gilliam will be doing another half-dozen of movies, but otherwise, Don Quixote is the perfect conclusive film for his career. Maybe it's not his best or easier to appreciate, but definitely it is his most representative one.

Maybe it helps to be familiar with Terry Gilliam's canon of work. But as a whole The Man Who Killed Don Quixote is a multi-layered story of the Ages of Man. The Dreamer and the Raconteur living in parallel lives.

What's fascinating is how the meanings of each of the characters and their story arcs fold into each other from the director, Terry Gilliam's own life to Adam Driver, playing a Gilliam figure all the way to Jonathan Pryce's man who's seemingly lost his mind. Part of me wonders how much of this is a farcical documentary or auto-biography.

Still as heady as it can be it still entertains. The acting is great, the characters are fully realized and the settings, cinematography and production design are signature styles of Gilliam: hand-crafted to bend to the will of his vision...as mad as it may be.

This is not a run-of-the-mill linear movie. It's not a popcorn flick. There's a lot to interpret and involve the audience so, don't expect instant gratification. To a lot of reviewers it seems they were overwhelmed by an unclear story. Which that may be true for those who don't want to be involved in the story. It asks a bit of self-reflection, it asks a bit of trust that the characters, working on several levels of psychosis, dreams, hallucinations and madness will all come to a natural conclusion in their story arcs and bring the global story of the film into one single point of focus:

We all had dreams once and we got lost. We may remember those dreams in our middle-age and yet in our old age we may become consumed by the dream to point of dreaming of our own existence.

If you like BRAZIL or THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS you will like this film.

Terry Gilliam's long-gestating adaptation of Miguel de Cervantes's novel almost came to fruition in the early 2000s, before a series of mishaps forced production to shut down. Gilliam eventually managed to restart production and complete the movie. I should note that "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" is not a direct adaptation of the novel; it depicts a present-day man (Jonathan Pryce) who convinces himself that he's the famous knight-errant, and that his erstwhile director (Adam Driver) is his squire.

You gotta love a Terry Gilliam movie (and yes, that includes the widely reviled "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"). As he often does, he turns out a surreal story with quirky characters. At times the movie is befuddling, with the viewer not totally sure what's real. It's not Gilliam's best by any stretch, but worth seeing. I hope to eventually see the documentary about the failed production of the movie's first attempt.