Alex
I saw this as a surprise screening just now and when the name Terry Gilliam popped up everyone was really happy and excited about what we were about to witness. Unfortunately the movie - ambitious as the idea might be, paying hommage to Don Quixote placing it in a real contemporary setting - it was a chaotic and upsetting disaster with me at times feeling embarrassed for the awful lines "f**k you! Alexey is the only one who does that!" and being incredibly bored inbeetween. Can't believe Adam Driver gave himself for that. This is no Brazil, it's confusingly bad and written to hurt you! Ok the costumes are cool but that doesn't save it.. Stay away!
Katrina Fleming
If you know the story of Don Quixote, the Man from LaMancha you will find this film to be very clever in its layering of the original tale intertwined with a new tale that is infused about a narcissistic director (Adam Driver) who has lost his creative mojo whilst filming a feature film about Don Quixote in Spain. True to its original intent, it is a hybrid of reality and fantasy with the cruelties of the world as a backdrop to what could be with a touch of madness. It has much to say about youthful and brave creativity, and the artistic freedom that comes from true independence and the necessity of reframing your reality to match your circumstance. Love, passion, friendship, empathy, and generosity of spirit are explored in a modern version of the Spanish Inquisition. The jailhouse sequences are sublime in their mash up of real and unreal. It is a clever, witty and multilayered script with much for the literate fan to digest and plenty for newcomers to the tale to learn. Jonathan Price is perfect as Don Quixote and Adam Driver manages to deliver skepticism, narcissism and empathy along an increasingly complex tightrope with ease. The script is a marvel and the directing and edit are to be applauded. I don't know what the film offers people unfamiliar with the original story- but as I've been waiting for many years to see this film I can say it does not disappoint, I'll be thinking about it for a long, long time. Well done Terry Gillem
schrijvermarcel
Totally bonkers, dreamlike, vintage Gilliam and in the end even Lynchian weird. When it works it's brilliant, when it doesn't, it's baffling and sometimes boring. But even when the script doesn't work, the movie is saved by the incredible cast. It's among both Adam Driver's and Jonathan Pryce best work. Also, I'm in love with Joana Ribeiro.
Skinshark
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.
AD
