Review - Man of la Mancha (1972 - Dir. Arthur Hiller)

I did a double take when the name of the director came up: Arthur Hitler. Ah... no, Arthur Hiller. Easy mistake to make.

This is the fourth in our season of beloved musicals. It also suffers massively from the main reason why I hate musicals. When a character starts to sing, everyone else miraculously knows all the words. Not only that, they can sing it with three part harmonies. And perform a funny little dance routine. Satan has yet to come up with a greater sin. Man of la Mancha falls foul of this many times. A bunch of grizzled prisoners suddenly gain the singing ability of Mick Ball and the dance moves of Len Goodman. Preposterous. 

Man of la Mancha is a musical version of Don Quixote. It starts off with an allegedly true story from the life of the author Cervantes. He gets banged away in a prison for being a poet (fair enough) with the heavy threat of the Spanish Inquisition looming over him. The other prisoners can't stand his poetic ways either so they put him on trial. He tries to convince them of his worth by getting them to act out the story of Don Quixote with him. And have a bit of a sing too. Great defense. If I'm ever up in court, I'm going to have a go at that. I'll get the judge to pretend to be Scar and sing along to songs from The Lion King. The lawyers can dance and pretend to be giraffes or something. Guaranteed acquittal. 

Everything was going so well(ish) for the first twenty minutes. It looks gorgeous and made me think of what could have been if Terry Gilliam had made his version. Peter O'Toole was growing on me, playing both Cervantes and Don Quixote, even though his make up is one of the creepiest things since Bobby in The Divide. There's even a smidgen of Carry On humour as the buxom Sophia Loren walks in carrying a brace of jugs. But then the songs start. Very few of them are memorable and most sound as if the actors are making them up on the spot. The middle hour or so is dire. It was worse than being tortured by the Spanish Inquisition. Severe boredom doesn't do it justice.  

At this point I was deciding between a rating of 1 or 0. But it managed to turn it around. The ending is actually pretty engaging and dare I say touching at points. The aforementioned couple of memorable songs are repeated towards the end and I forgot the turgid hell-hole of the middle section. Almost.

Man of la Mancha is a huge test of endurance but there is some entertainment value, especially for hardcore musical fans. To sum up, it's obscure. Well, I hadn't heard of it before. It makes its 132 mins running time feel like 132 years, but it has got some filmic worth. For only the second time in history a film gains the coveted Werner Herzog obscurendure award. 

(Amazingly enough this award is in no way endorsed by the genius Werner Herzog.)
3/10
evlkeith



If you like this you could also try:
Lost in La Mancha, Don Quixote (1957).

Review - The Hourglass Sanitorium (1973 - Dir. Wojciech Has)

Crikey. Where to start with this one. Well, it's the first winner of the Werner Herzog obscurendure award because it is very obscure and a major test of endurance at 124 minutes, but it does have its good points.

Visually, this Polish film is a treat. If you took any still frame from the film and showed it to me, I'd think it looked just my cup of tea: bleak, atmospheric, haunting and dreamlike. Occasionally, there are spots of vibrant colour within the grey surroundings and it looks stunning. 


Józef's father has been sent to a sanatorium and when he goes to visit, he finds a crumbling, overgrown, rundown hospital. He sees his father. Time goes a bit funny. Then we're into a massive dreamlike sequence. Of which I understood nothing.

 
Like Shakespeare, I understand all the words, but string them all together and I haven't got a clue. I know I'm a thick northerner, but this film is surely impenetrable and virtually inaccessible to 99% of the population. Of the 1% left they probably wouldn't want to watch it either. But somewhere there will be someone who understands and enjoys it. Someone very clever. Not me then.

The beautiful final images remind me of The Beyond. I wonder if Fulci had seen this film and homaged/thieved from it. Glad he did though. Way better film. I don't feel qualified to give The Hourglass Sanitorium a rating. Most people would give it a 0 and not get through 20 minutes of it. A very small percentage may give it a 10, I don't know. I think, based on it being gorgeous visually, I'll give it a...
2/10

evlkeith

http://www.lovefilm.com/film/The-Hourglass-Sanatorium/118979/

If you like this you could also try:

The Saragossa Manuscript, any Werner Herzog film.

Only the first three minutes of this are from The Hourglass Sanitorium (as if you care).