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Fabulous Baron Munchausen, The
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| Year: |
1961
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Director: |
Karel Zeman
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| Stars: |
Milos Kopecký, Rudolf Jelínek, Jana Brejchová, Karel Höger, Nadesa Blazickova, Karel Effa, Josef Hlinomaz, Zdenek Hodr, Miroslav Holub, Miroslav Homola, Rudolf Hrusínský, Eduard Kohout, Otto Simánek, Frantisek Slégr, Václav Trégl, Jan Werich
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| Genre: |
Fantasy, Adventure |
| Rating: |
  7 (from 2 votes) |
| Review: |
From the earth, up through the air, past the birds and aeroplanes, to the sky, through the stratosphere, we follow a rocket into space and onto the moon where the astronaut (Rudolf Jelínek) disembarks and begins to explore, leaving his footprints in the dust of the satellite's surface. To his great surprise, he is not alone up there, and is approached by three figures who introduce themselves as fictional characters from history, including Cyrano de Bergerac. But then another character draws near, none other than famed fantasist Baron Munchausen (Milos Kopecký), who invites the astronaut on an adventure...
After all, there more to pioneering than travelling to the moon, as there is so much down on planet Earth worth exploring, while we see there is no love on the barren moon and both the Baron and the astronaut, who is called Tony, feel the need for feminine companionship. This was not the first version of the Baron's stories to reach the screen, as there had been the infamous Nazi version from Germany during the Second World War, and the far more agreeable Terry Gilliam version from the late eighties which was inspired by this Czechoslovakian telling, known as Baron Prásil in its native tongue.
You can easily see why it appealed to Gilliam, as not only does it offer fertile ground for any filmmaker's imagination, but the director Karel Zeman implemented a variety of animation techniques of which the American auteur's own later Monty Python cartoons looked to echo. Zeman is sadly rather forgotten nowadays, in spite of exhibiting a flair for fantasy storytelling which ranked amongst his peers, even if he preferred the striking image to a depth of character, which might be why his films might have failed to endure with modern audiences quite in the way that someone better known in the field might. Nevertheless, there were oodles more charm in five minutes of Zeman's work than in many a CGI effort.
It could be that handmade appearance to the effects, which may look primitive, but still have a power to entrance. His Baron Munchausen was intended to bring the illustrations of the nineteenth century text by Gustav Doré to life, and if they don't have the same level of detail, the stop motion stylings and carefully rendered backgrounds have a delight all their own. If there's not much in the way of character to latch onto, then there's always those dreamlike visuals which parade across the screen as the Baron and Tony travel back to Earth only to find that it is no longer the twentieth century, why is never explained, as we have returned to the Baron's times and landed in Turkey after being transported there by a fleet of winged horses.
It is in the Sultan's palace that they both meet Princess Bianca (Jana Brejchová, who could count Milos Forman among her husbands), and both of them fall for her, although it is only with Tony that romance is reciprocated. Despite this, the travellers spring the Princess from her gilded cage and find the Sultan sending his fleet of warships after them, which leads with surreal logic to everyone on the ship that has picked the three of them up smoking so much that they create a fog to confound their pursuers. If you know the classic tale, then you'll recognise the various setpieces, such as being swallowed by the whale or the Baron surveying a battleground on a flying cannonball (quite militaristic, this story), but the presentation is what counts, even if the lying aspect to the Baron doesn't appear to have troubled Zeman much. It's lovely to look at, and one of the director's most rightly lauded works. Music by Zdenek Liska.
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| Reviewer: |
Graeme Clark
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