I've finally watched the film this evening. this long-suffering, long-gestating production, a work of labor and love for nearly three decades, and it's truly a film that only Terry Gilliam could direct.
Avoiding the obvious pitfalls of actually adapting the material (which is truly unsuitable for even a three-hour film), Gilliam instead tells a surreal story about a man who directs a troubled production of Don Quixote and finds himself tumbling down a rabbit hole of his own creation. He re-encounters an old man who he cast in the lead role ten years previously in his student film of the epic, but in the intervening years, the man has convinced himself that he is indeed Don Quixote and the director is his faithful companion Sancho Panza. What ensues forthwith is the director having to face the consequences of his decisions of his past in a mad journey with Don Quixote that blurs reality and sanity to the very end, while paying tribute to the grand novel itself.
I only wish that more people had gotten the opportunity to see this film and I certainly wish I had been able to see it on the big screen. It ranks among Gilliam's finest films such as Time Bandits, Brazil, The Fisher King, and Twelve Monkeys, not coincidentally all dealing with the same themes.
