The man who killed don quixote

My all time favour film director finished this one in 2018. Heard it took more than 15 years to complete this film. Of course, a lot of things had happened to delay its production. Also, heard that the original key actor was Johnny. it makes me always see the shadow of Johnny in the film. it is unfair to Adam Driver who act brilliantly in the film. He is a good actor for sure. he is. 

The film is as brilliant by mixing the reality and fantasy. There are plots within the plots and the plots always give surprises to audience. To be honest, I really like the bitter-sweet inside this film between the reality and the world of fantasy. 

I first watched in 2022, alone at a weekend night. I also watched "the front" at that weekend. it is something I truly enjoy to do for a lazy weekend alone. 

Terry Gilliam is always my favour film director. I have nothing to criticise at all. Although It might not be commercially successful. However, his films are just great to watch and I would say all his films are classic of dark comedy to catch the vibes of fantasy of something deep inside our soul. The devil, the hero, things happened that we cannot be sure whether they were dream or really existed somewhere sometime in this world. He opened up the world of fantasy, mixing classic literature with modern backdrop, and echo the deep question inside our humanity. Living in one's own world of fantasy or living in the reality to chase after money or success. Which is dream or which is not? 

Below is a link of NY Times film critics. Let's see how professionals write about it:

 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/18/movies/man-who-killed-don-quixote-review.html#:~:text=%E2%80%9CThe%20Man%20Who%20Killed%20Don%20Quixote%E2%80%9D%20is%20most%20fantastical%20when,most%20cursed%20film%20ever.%E2%80%9D%5D

Vocab list:

the Gilliam stalwart Jonathan Pryce

 the great films maudits of our time

so long in gestation, 

has beguiled and baffled readers for several centuries

a lively, charming excursion into a landscape claimed by Gilliam

adds luster and vigor to the images

literary-minded reverence.

a celebration of artistic kinship 

kind of doom.

 has been frittered away in a series of compromises. 

traipsing through a Spain

chivalric personality

Gilliam’s ingenuity is his ability 

meanness

of virtue to vice 

Dazzled by dreams of

vulgar and sadistic

works best as an exuberant,

it often jumbles spectacle and sense, and fumbles some important emotions. 

Driver, a wondrously subtle and startlingly emphatic actor, is too often reduced to yelling and waving his arms, and the more delicate notes of longing, nostalgia and wonder that should drive the story are drowned out by clatter and huggermugger. The romanticism has a creepy side.

Instead, it testifies to the vitality of an archetype embodied in different ways by Toby, Gilliam and the Man of La Mancha himself: the fool who mistakes his blundering errand for a sacred quest.