Lost In La Mancha

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Wildly sad, funny and terrific documentary.

Newsweek David Ansen

An excruciatingly entertaining portrait of the filmmaking process that no Hollywood studio would ever allow to be shown. But Gilliam, bless his impish, obsessive heart, is anything but a Hollywood type.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

This is a sad and funny true-life tale that speaks volumes about the difficulties of independent filmmaking.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Watching it is like being trapped in one of those nightmares where you need to get somewhere, fast, and you're distracted and delayed at every turn. Only in this case, the nightmare is happening to someone else, and it's costing an awful lot of money.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Records an accident while it's happening, revealing a situation that makes you laugh again and again while weeping, metaphorically at least, for the sheer frustration of it all.

Dallas Observer Bill Gallo

An ideal film for movie buffs, who are bound to delight in each new misfortune even as they sympathize with the documentarians' sometimes inflated vision of a tortured genius at work.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

A mesmerizing documentary.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

This documentary could have been a simple downer. Instead, it's a giddy, manic-depressive roller coaster - because it brings us eye to eye with Gilliam.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Nothing more than a modest, streamlined ''making of...'' diary about a movie that never got made -- it's ''Project Greenlight'' with bigger stars and bigger disasters.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Too bad for Gilliam and everyone involved, but in the departments of spectacle and schadenfreude, great fun for us.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Lost in La Mancha, a documentary about a movie that never got made, is more involving -- and heartbreaking -- than many movies that do get made.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

At once bitterly funny and devastating, Lost In La Mancha sides with Gilliam in form and spirit, piecing together the train wreck with snaky humor and interludes that cleverly mimic his Monty Python collage animations.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

The documentary is fascinating, but hardly enjoyable. It's like watching ants eat an elephant.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Like rubbernecking motorists, we can't help but watch with lurid fascination.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

After watching the fascinating and compelling new documentary Lost in La Mancha, you may forever wonder how it is that movies are made at all.

Variety Derek Elley

There's no shortage of disaster stories in the history of film production, but none have been recorded with such frankness, immediacy and aching sense of disappointment.

Time Richard Schickel

It will fascinate and possibly even delight cinephiles. Who does not enjoy gawking at accidents, particularly those in which there are no fatalities and the sad story unfolds in almost slow-motion clarity?

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

The equation of Gilliam with Quixote is so obvious to everyone involved that Fulton and Pepe can hardly be blamed for adopting it.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

A fascinating record of how the movie fell apart, piece by piece, with everything short of a natural disaster conspiring against the filmmaker.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Lost in La Mancha, which started life as one of those documentaries you get free on a DVD, ended as the record of swift and devastating disaster.

New York Post Megan Lehmann

When Gilliam is finally forced to admit defeat, it is nothing short of heartbreaking - for audiences, too, as the few shots that made it into the can hold such promise.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

It is an honest, dumbstruck, not particularly deep demonstration of how insanely difficult it is to make a movie, any movie, no matter how blithe the end result may appear on screen.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Lost in La Mancha basically catches "Don Quixote" in free fall…It's our loss nonetheless. Gilliam is one of the great film fantasists of our age, and one expects he would have done Cervantes proud.

San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann

Captures one of the wildest, most heartbreaking episodes in Gilliam's career.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Fulton and Pepe have created an extraordinary document. Hilarious and heartbreaking.

Chicago Tribune Mark Caro

You can interpret Lost in La Mancha as a sort of triumph of the creative spirit. Gilliam's darkest gallows humor always comes with a smile.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

In the end, it's not much fun to watch a brave artist getting his dream kicked out of him.

Slate David Edelstein

Squirmily funny documentary.

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

Throughout, the documentary is fun and engaging, even whimsical when using (to good effect) illustrations and Gilliam’s own storyboards.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Privy to virtually all phases of the debacle, the filmmakers have created the behind-the-camera equivalent of a slo-mo crash test.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Gilliam himself is a joy to behold. His wit stays sharp even as his fortunes dull, and the conditions that conspire against him only prove the mettle in our man of La Mancha.

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

You can't help feeling that what this enterprise required was Louis B. Mayer, or, though one has no wish to be cruel, Harry Cohn. [3 February 2003, p.98]

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

The film should be required viewing for all aspiring filmmakers, but the story's road-accident appeal is universal.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

The movie neither inspires us to pine for what might've been nor makes Gilliam-style filmmaking seem like a noble pursuit.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

So this is not, as vaunted, a documentary about a film destroyed by temperaments and tizzies. It is the account of a medical catastrophe that could have spoiled the opening of a supermarket.