The Man Who Killed Don Quixote - Review

Terry Gilliam’s long-awaited film, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, has been anticipated for so long, it was hard to imagine that it could live up to the mythology and hype of its storied delays. Lawsuits, death, and natural disasters galore plagued the film’s 25+ year production history, so much so that documentaries were made about Don Quixote NOT being made. When it finally came to theaters for a one-night only engagement, I entered with a lot of trepidation, worried that all the build-up would likely lead to nothing really worth talking about. 

 

Fortunately, I was wrong. The Man Who Killed Don Quixote is Terry Gilliam in top, weird form.

This iteration of the film stars Adam Driver as Toby, a pretentious, selfish advertising exec filming a commercial in Spain. It’s clear from the get-go that Toby is a cad and kind of a jerk as he casually uses women in his crew and treats his staff like barely existent idiots. Then he comes across a DVD copy of his own student film that he shot in that same area of Spain ten years before back when he was an idealistic film student. In a fit of nostalgia, he returns Los Suenos, the village where he filmed to find that Javier, the man who played Don Quixote in his film still thinks he is Miguel Cervantes’ famous protagonist. (Incidentally, Los Suenos is Spanish for the dreams.) Through a series of mishaps, Toby sets the village on fire and ends up in trouble with the law. Our would-be Quixote rescues him and the two go on the run in a kaleidoscopic quest through gorgeous Spanish backdrops. There’s time travel and/or an elaborate dream sequence, jousting, a damsel who may or may not need rescuing, and plenty of bickering between Quixote and Toby who he thinks is actually his sidekick, Sancho Panza. 

When Gilliam is at his best, as he is here, his work is loose, unpredictable, and weird in a fun way. He definitely has his stylistic quirks – he never seen a rearing horse he didn’t want to film in slo-mo and he’s never met a tilted camera angle he didn’t like. But despite these idiosyncracies, the film remains spry and enjoyable instead of quirky for quirk’s sake. The cinematography is rich and lovely, and the special effects, while state of the art, maintain the same cartoonish nature Gilliam developed as an animator for Monty Python.

Driver is truly the star of this film and is a surprisingly gifted comic actor. His line delivery made me laugh out loud repeatedly throughout the film. Richard Pryce as Javier/Don Quixote is pretty great. His lunacy serves as an excellent foil to Driver’s exasperated Toby.

The film is packed with Gilliam’s inside jokes, references and meta-filmic gags. Early on, characters speak in subtitled Spanish but soon Toby simply says, “We know each other. We don’t need these” and sweeps the subtitles off the screen with his hand like dust off a windowsill. During the flash flood that halted filming back in 2000, famously there was footage of two mattresses being swept away. In the 2019 film, when he’s on the run from the law, Toby dives inbetween two dirty mattresses on a garbage heap that looks like what was left after a flash flood. For people who followed The Man Who Killed Don Quixote for the last quarter century, there are plenty of Easter eggs to reward their attentive viewing.

In the end, the title of the film proves to be truth in advertising as Pryce’s character does indeed die. However, the film demonstrates that characters like Don Quixote and the obsession they inspire never really die. Instead, they get passed on almost like a virus from one reader or believer to the next.

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote is unpredictable to say the least, but the most suprising thing about it is how it managed to be a pleasant surprise after all this time.