“Making a film is essentially about two things: belief and momentum.”
– Terry Gilliam

Making a film about Don Quixote has, as many people know, for many years been a dream for the ambitious visionary Terry Gilliam. A dream that sprung to life not long after production finished on the artistically successful and financial turkey The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. The Man Who Killed Don Quixote was to be the title of the film, and after many years it appeared to finally become a reality. Starring Johnny Depp and Jean Rochefort and with financing secured, production began in October 2000.
Things immediately began to go to hell.
Fulton and Pepe’s insightful documentation of it all provides a fascinating look into Gilliam’s doomed project. The catastrophes line up almost from day one: stars disappearing and/or injuring themselves badly, NATO jets thundering over a seventeenth century set, unstable financing spread across investors from England, France, Germany and Spain. And, of course, rain. Eventually Gilliam assumes, as usual, personal traits from his film’s main character. With Brazil he ended up facing an all-powerful, suit-clad bureaucracy/tyranny. Here he naturally ends up fighting a losing battle against his own, metaphorical windmills. A by all means fascinating look at how deep the gap between a director’s visions and the hard facts of life can be.