The film is of course a pure creation and it is built on three layers, all of them fictitious, more or less, but always a little or a lot according to what you know or think of Cervantes and Don Quixote. First Cervantes, then Alonso Quijano and finally Don Quixote. The first one is the author. The second one is the real identity of the character. The third one is his imaginary identity in his knight errant fantasy and delusion.

The film centers on Cervantes, a playwright and actor who performs in the market place. His plays are satirical and hence attack directly or indirectly the all-powerful church in Spain. It is true Cervantes was excommunicated by the inquisition, but here he is arrested, imprisoned in an underground dungeon and finally summoned for his trial and we will never know the end of it, though we know he was not executed, far from it.

Then the film puts him on trial in the vast dungeon where he is imprisoned by the people in the dungeon, under the authority of the one who was appointed governor of this underground society by the inhabitants of this netherland. To defend himself he gets the right to perform his Don Quixote story, whose manuscript got nearly burnt. He uses his props and masks and all the people in the dungeon take part. It is thus a description of the life in such a prison and of a play that is acted in good faith and with fun by the prisoners as an entertainment. Think or dream of an entertainment in such a miserable environment where you do not see the light of day and where anyone can be summoned for trial, which means questioning (I guess this is a nice word for torturing) and then sentencing and executing.

If the play is performed in the prison, the camera takes us in real outside décor and setting and we get the Don Quixote story in the real imaginary world of Cervantes. And we get everything, the giant windmills, the horse Rocinante, the whore Dulcinea, and many other niceties of that kind draped in some fantasy or delusion by Don Quixote. That world is cruel, cruel with women first of all, cruel with people who are not "normal" then, those who seem to be slightly "crazy" or "corrugated" if not plainly "deranged suckers." Violence is the basic condiment of this life and for women it is rape, which is not rape really in those days, just using the woman the way she is supposed to exist for. Willing or not is not a question in those days and love is nothing but sex at the request of the man and no is not a possible answer from the woman. Like it or not, that's your function. The film is not fuzzy about it.

And yet that makes Don Quixote really crazy who lives in a world of chivalry that has been long gone in the sixteenth century, a world of chivalric and courteous love that has never really existed, except as a dream in the minds of some medieval poets, a world of honor, glory and enchanters, hence of some kind of magic that has never had the slightest beginning of an existence or reality.

But we evade these two worlds into the real world of the fictional character Alonso Quijano who is dying. He is on his death bed totally unaware of his fantastic adventures when his servant Sancho and the inn maid from the local inn come to visit him and try to revive his delusion to lead him to a pleasurable death. And little by little his memory comes back and he dies singing the song about reaching the unreachable star, as if dying was the surest way to do so, but it sure is a pleasant way to die for Don Quixote, or is it Alonso Quijano?

The last and fascinating aspect of the film I want to mention is the music and the songs. They are absolutely mesmerizing and they are worth a fortune of pleasure. We can understand why Jacques Brel recorded the score in its French adaptation. There is no difference between, that Don Quixote and so many of the characters in Jacques Brel's songs, Jacky, Jef and innumerable other Caporal Casse Pompon. It is a true testament about real true voracious life fantasized by a truly insane person who believes a world that was a dream in the Middle Ages is possible in today's global village. The film here works on that dimension so well that there is no hope of any salvation in this universe, nor in any other post mortem cosmos except dying singing about a dreamlike Never- never-land with a Captain Hook and a Tinkerbell in the childish mind of Peter Pan. "I could pretend I'm flying away."

Well done but not quite for younger children.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

Many, many years ago, I saw Richard Kiley in a revival of the play "Man of La Mancha". Considering Kiley received an Emmy for this role, I was fortunate to see him playing this part. But, like so many Hollywood films, instead of allowing Kiley to reprise the role, they cast another actor...one that couldn't sing! This was the case with Audrey Hepburn in "My Fair Lady" as well as the ultra-bizarre casting of Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood in "Paint Your Wagon". So, from the onset, that's a strike against the movie. While Peter O'Toole was good, he wasn't Richard Kiley.

Fortunately, despite the odd but typical casting, attempts to denude the story of its original songs were mostly thwarted. This is a big plus since the music is the best part of the movie.

As for the story, it is not a direct retelling of Cervantes' novel "Don Quixote". Instead, it's the supposed story of the author in prison, telling part of the Don Quixote story and inspiring them in the process.

While I much preferred the play, and the film seems like a filmed play, I did appreciate how the filmmakers did not make the attack on Aldonza late in the story more explicit. It was more explicit in the play...something that really seemed unnecessary. Overall, a very watchable film that I enjoyed but might leave folks a bit confused unless they've seen the play.

Man of La Mancha has often been on people's worst movie musicals list. Seeing it recently to see whether it was as bad as all that. After seeing it, it is a long way from great but it isn't as bad as I'd heard(Hair and Annie have also been maligned and are other movie musicals that are not that bad, I personally love Annie and have done since childhood). It is nowhere near as good as West Side Story, Beauty and the Beast, The Wizard of Oz, Singin' in the Rain, Mary Poppins, Fiddler on the Roof and The Sound of Music, but it is better than Xanadu, Can't Stop the Music, Mame, Grease 2, Across the Universe, The Wiz, A Little Night Music and A Chorus Line.

Man of La Mancha is far from irredeemable. The best asset is the noble and commanding performance of Peter O'Toole, even if Golden Helmet is slightly overacted and his make-up is far too heavy-looking. Sophia Loren is breathtakingly beautiful, sassy and charming, and James Coco is fun and touching, his character is much more subtle here than in the stage musical. The "maddest of all..." dialogue is incredibly poignant as is the prison scene, the sets are striking and while only two or three are truly memorable(The Impossible Dream is rightfully a classic) the songs are very easy on the ear. Unfortunately The Man of Mancha has failings too. I'm going to have to agree about the singing, not only are the singers ill-suited for the songs but those who dub don't make much of an effort to sound like the actors.

That is especially true of Simon Gilbert, an unsteady and underpowered voice that doesn't sound much like O'Toole's quite noble and baritone-like speaking voice. IMDb also seems to say that Ian Richardson did his own singing for the Padre, I'm not convinced, it may have been the case but Richardson's speaking voice isn't really that similar to the reedy sound heard with the singing. Loren took a brave risk singing her own songs but it is a risk that doesn't pay off, she sounds strained and while she does have some singing ability(Harry Andrews' singing was also rather limited) her range is too low for the songs she sings. Another problematic spot was Arthur Hiller's direction, the kind that doesn't have much of an idea in how to direct the film. Often it is rather heavy-handed, self-conscious and of the try-too-hard type.

With the visual look, the sets are lovely but the photography could have done with a brighter and a more cinematic approach. There is not a fault to be had with the score and songs themselves, but in the film they seemed to have been under-scored and anaemic, more grandeur and sweep would have been more welcome. The film does deserve a little credit in trying to translate a big and quite difficult to stage already musical but it tries so hard that much of the dialogue lose their impact and the story loses momentum. Not all the support cast work, Ian Richardson is a sympathetic Padre but Brian Blessed's Pedro is wildly overplayed attired in a rather stereotypical costume.

Overall, not as bad as touted to be from a personal opinion stand-point but the criticisms are understandable actually and even with things that were done quite well Man of La Mancha could have been far better considering the talent. 4/10 Bethany Cox