GILLIAM'S IMPOSSIBLE DREAM.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Critic

'LOST IN LA MANCHA'' is the perfect antidote to those fake, smile- until-it-hurts ``behind the scenes'' documentaries that seem to pop up on just about every DVD release these days. These patently false features reveal the filmmaking process as much as a ride on Disneyland's safari adventure takes you into the heart of Africa. They make filmmaking look easy, and it's not. If it were, more than half the psychologists in the L.A. area would be out of business.

No, ``Lost in La Mancha'' gets it right, although the problems that poor Terry Gilliam encounters here seem more like the kind of plagues one finds in the Old Testament. Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe's superb documentary captures Gilliam's valiantly doomed attempt to make a movie from Miguel de Cervantes' classic novel. The movie itself is an immediate classic, joining the likes of ``Hearts of Darkness'' and ``Burden of Dreams'' in the pantheon of riveting chronicles of moviemaking madness.

Gilliam, the director of such visionary films as ``Brazil'' and ``Twelve Monkeys,'' certainly seems aware that he's tilting at windmills as the documentary begins.

But the problems facing Gilliam here are huge. Like most of Gilliam's projects, the ideas in his head are of a far grander scale than his budget can afford. His lead actor, Jean Rochefort, is 70 and frail and has only recently learned to speak English. His other leads - the game Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis - face time constraints and can only turn up for filming at the last second. And the Spanish soundstage that Gilliam has secured has terrible acoustics.

Money, though, is at the root of everything that goes awry here. The small budget means that nothing can go wrong on a production that one could charitably call problematic. Fulton and Pepe do a superb job taking us behind the scenes in pre-production meetings, laying the foundation for the disaster that is to come. Think of it as a ``Project Greenlight,'' only with a filmmaker who's actually talented, and you get the idea of the illuminating journey the movie affords.

I won't go into the specifics of what happened once filming began. The insurers call it a force majeure, which translates roughly into an ``act of God.'' If that's true, God doesn't like Gilliam much, which is too bad, because we need more filmmakers like him. The epilogue notes that Gilliam still dreams the impossible dream. Here's hoping he achieves it - and brings Pepe and Fulton along for the ride again.

LOST IN LA MANCHA - Three and one half stars

(R: language)

Starring: Terry Gilliam, Johnny Depp, Jean Rochefort.

Director: Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe.

Running time: 1 hr. 29 min.

Playing: Landmark's Nuart Theater in West Los Angeles.

In a nutshell: Superb documentary about Terry Gilliam's doomed attempts to make a movie based on Miguel de Cervantes' classic novel.