Lluis Carbo plays the self-made knight as a tired old man, stillfaithful to the chivalric code that inspires his quest, but increasinglylooking beyond this world towards some premonition of the afterlife. The director is not interested in giving form to Quixote's visions he'd rather study the visionary himself. Serra, who holds adegree in literary theory and has previously written for the theatre, tries tograsp at the melancholic soul of the pathetic hero, not his picaresqueexterior. We'veseen Don Quixote Hollywoodised (in Man Of La Mancha, with Peter O'Toole and Sophia Loren), televised(by Peter Yates, in his 2000 mini-series) and fantasised (by Terry Gilliam andOrson Welles, neither of whom finished theirambitious projects). For all itsmoments of excruciating tedium, hard-line cineastes and Quixote fans with acouple of hours to invest will derive not a little pleasure from Honor De Cavalleria,as first-time director Serra strips away the plot ofCervantes' novel to focus on the Quixote- Panzarelationship and the gentle, mystic side of the deluded knight-errant.įurtherfestival action and some limited arthousedistribution in its native Spain are probably the most this low-low- budgetepic can hope for - unless specialist foreign buyers are feeling particularlyquixotic. Sadisticallyslow, the film demands a patience, which few at its first Director's Fortnight screeningat Cannes were prepared to give.īutwhile a festival audience's walkout rate can be a good working measure of afilm's commercial prospects, it is an unreliable test of quality. 112mins.ĭon Quixoteand his faithful servant Sancho Panzaare intriguingly lost in La Mancha in Honor De Cavalleria,Albert Serra's ultra-minimalist take on Cervantes'enduring classic, which allies itself militantly with an older generation of arthouse masters: Bresson, Pasolini, Olmi.
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