Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe are the filmmakers behind the new documentary "Lost in La Mancha," a chronicle about filmmaker Terry Gilliam ("12 Monkeys") in his sisyphusian battle to produce his spin on Cervantes' classic "Don Quixote." Gilliam's intended film, appropriately titled "The Man who Killed Don Quixote," stars Jean Rochefort as the autumnal and delusional Don Quixote and Johnny Depp as Toby, a modern day advertising executive who gets transported back in time and is mistaken by Quixote as his faithful squire, Sancho Panza. Jeff Bridges (a Gilliam veteran from "The Fisher King") narrates the documentary with a wry sense of insight into the prevailing disaster of a production that is about to unravel.This is no ordinary film about filmmaking though, as "Lost in La Mancha" unintentionally captures everything that could go wrong with the filmmaking process with one of today's most infamous and debated directors. Gilliam himself is noted for his self-conscious visual extravagance, which, when coupled with unfair myths of his out-of-control budgets, has made him one of the most off-putting directors in Hollywood.

That's why, as "Lost in La Mancha" starts out, Gilliam has arrived in Madrid to begin production on "Don Quixote," fully funded by European investors with the heavy budget of $32 million, a petty sum by Hollywood standards. Gilliam was unable to get his dream project produced in America, so he went to Europe. As Gilliam tells the audience, he's been planning his version of Don Quixote for well over a decade. And his magnificent version has been playing so many times, over and over, in his head that he just has to get the film made, just like he wants it.

The first half of the film is intrinsically exciting as we watch the lavish pre-production phase of "The Man who Killed Don Quixote." Filmmakers had full access to Gilliam and the production, even during its disasters they were allowed to shoot, and thus had the unbridled opportunity to witness chaos in action. There are warehouses full of costumes and entire soundstages of extravagant sets being made. The spectacle is so amazing that, as the first day of filming looms over the horizon, we are anxious that everything will go as planned. And, of course it doesn't, as inevitable disaster overturns Gilliam's promising production.

One doesn't need to be a fan of Gilliam to appreciate "La Mancha," a complex and fascinating portrayal of an artist at work and the nerve-wracking work of filmmaking. As New York Times critic Elvis Mitchell noted, "La Mancha" leaves the audience to "forever wonder how it is movies are made at all." The film is simultaneously guiltily entertaining and mind-bogglingly frustrating. You will catch yourself whacking your forehead more than once during the course of the film.

"Lost in La Mancha" may just be one of the best Gilliam films so far, and, ironically, it's not even a Gilliam film. The type of over-the-top, lavish productions that popularly denote a Gilliam film play out here in the gestation stage, only to be tragically overrun by weather, illness and scheduling, among other small catastrophes.

Gilliam's more-than-obvious Don Quixote syndrome is played out to completion, or incompletion as the film will have it. As the official "Lost in La Mancha" Website points out, Gilliam takes on the role alter-ego Don Quixote in the course of the production, eventually having a surreal flirt with the same imagined reality as his protagonist. As of today, Gilliam's film has been shut down and abandoned, and although the filmmaker has feverishly tried to resume production, the film still remains in limbo. So, far all those who see the film and are appalled and impressed by what you see, send your nickels to Gilliam.

Gilliam, in an interview shortly after the shut-down of "La Mancha" told a reporter that making a film like "Quixote" is essentially about two things -- belief and momentum. You need those two essential elements, one feeding the other, or things fall apart. Just as "Quixote" is about these same two things, it also inevitably lacked them, which provides for an engaging lesson in failure.