Although I'm yet to see Orson Welles' "The Other Side of the Wind" since it had such a legendary reputation for over 40 years since it never got completed in Welles
lifetime and just like his very first "Citizen Kane", of which we quiver in anticipation due to its importance and legacy (but I'm a big enthusiast of this masterpiece) I have
to bow to this short documentary due to many positive things it shows about the makings of a movie. From the process of gathering material considered lost, spread on vaults all over
the world, putting them in order and try to find the specific way Welles wanted to edit his picture and then create new things out of the blue imagining the filmmaker's vision, a
Frankenstein of sorts, it has to be something to be marveled at. I simply loved this documentary, a fascinating making of that beats many similar past projects out there.
We ought thank the tenacity of Welles friend Peter Bogdanovich all over the decades in keeping his promise to deliver the picture whatever it takes. Many legal obstacles and
many mysteries surrounding of what really existed of the movie made it an impossible task to finally get something done but it was solved, bit by bit and very slowly and mission was
accomplished.
I was deeply moved and fascinated by the whole process of bringing the picture back to light, going from the restauration of the prints, the amazing technology involved in
rescuing the sound and the images; the new effects that had to be created to match with the old picture; and the incredible music creation by legendary Michel Legrand, since how
could people understand Welles ideas for the picture's music - they didn't had a post-production in those terms, so many things had to imagined, the feeling of the movie and also to
reflect a different period. Legrand's ideas and rehearsals are a beautiful thing to experience. There's so much that could be said but I better stop here.
If you enjoy the filmmaking process and how everything's done before the ultimate material comes, this documentary is perfection in order to understand the mechanism of cinema. It
contains great technical moments, reunions and rehearsals, and fabulous interviews with folks who were involved with the film back in the day and the many newcomers who helped shape the
film that we had. 10/10.
