By PETER CALDER
(Herald rating: * * *)
There's a horrible fascination about this documentary, which records the swift disintegration of a feature film based on the adventures of Don Quixote. The makers claim - probably accurately - that it is history's first "unmaking" of documentary.
Films like Hearts of Darkness and
Burden of Dreams recorded the behind-the-camera nightmares of films (Apocalypse Now and Fitzcarraldo respectively) that were made, after all.
By contrast, Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, a $55 million European venture which explored the idea that Sancho Panza could be a time-travelling 20th-century advertising man, never made it to the screen.
It took 10 years to stitch the deal together and six days for it all to turn pear-shaped.
A key location is next to a Nato exercise area and screaming supersonic fighter-bombers fly into shots; a flash flood destroys a location; the lead actor, Frenchman Jean Rochefort, can't ride a horse.
As Gilliam's cameras stop, Fulton and Pepe's keep rolling. Gilliam - who encouraged the documentarians to persist - looks at the camera at one point and calls them (and by extension us) vultures.
It's a fascinating study of humans under stress and an instructive peek at the logistics of film-making.
But in the end, it's hard not to feel it's a study of ineptitude. Most of the misfortune that bedevils the production seems predictable if not avoidable and it's hard to feel we're in the presence of tragedy.
The insurers who paid out $30 million must have rued not doing their homework a little better.
The word is that The Man Who Killed Don Quixote may yet be revived. Whether it deserves to be is another matter.
Cast: Terry Gilliam, Johnny Depp, Jean Rochefort, Vanessa Paradis, Jeff Bridges (narrator)
Directors: Keith Fulton, Louis Pepe
Running time: 94 mins
Rating: M (contains sex scenes and offensive language)
Screening: Rialto
