Tilt

I've seen Tilt at a few different screenings. Each time I find myself amazed at how well done this is. I am intimately familiar with most of the story behind the making of this little film and it is Quixotic in it's own right. True to form, Lance Peverley and Patrick Stark set out determined to bring this story to life and they did. It took them 4 years to get all the bits and pieces assembled into a finished product. The cast and crew getting together whenever their schedules permitted and working from donations of time, equipment and money, they held on to their vision and saw it through. To see this movie and hear the story behind it is truly an experience.

This version of the story brings the ancient tale to modern day but all the old familiar names are there. As in Cervantes's tale, Don Quixote is persistent in his belief in chivalry and honour. He clings to the old ways and is reluctant to give way to modern behaviours. He sees things in a different way, the smoke stack of a factory is a beast to be conquered, his bicycle is his trusty steed and the hapless man stranded by a transit strike who tries to help suddenly finds himself to be the sidekick to the deluded Quixote.

There are many familiar faces among the cast, you'll recognize Tom Braidwood (from The X-Files and The Lone Gunmen), C. Ernst Harth (from episodes of The X-Files, Millennium, First Wave, and countless feature films, most recently Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed), as well as Glenn Taranto and Michael Roberds from The New Addams Family.

Terry Gilliam has not been as lucky or successful in bringing his version of the Don Quixote story to life, in the documentary that tells of his efforts he alludes to a curse upon any movie version of the tales of Don Quixote. Cervantes himself had his own obstacles to overcome before bringing the story to fore. If the curse is true, then Peverley and Stark may have conquered it.