`The Adventures of Baron Munchausen' is based upon the story of an eighteenth-century German nobleman who won himself a reputation as the world's greatest liar, constantly inventing tall tales of his exploits, each more incredible than the last. The film is set against the background of a mythical war between the Sultan of Turkey and a republican Mediterranean city-state, a sort of English-speaking Dubrovnik, and relates Munchausen's fantastic adventures while trying to lift the siege of the city.
The film was, of course, directed by Terry Gilliam of `Monty Python' fame, and the influence of that series is obvious. Like two of the Python films, `Monty Python and the Holy Grail' and `Life of Brian', it consists of a number of sketches strung together to form a loosely-connected narrative, set against a historical background. An even closer comparison, however, might be with Gilliam's Python animations, as the film relies less on verbal wit than either `Holy Grail' or `Brian' and more on surrealism and visual inventiveness. The plot is very loose and episodic, with each sketch depicting one of the many adventures of Munchausen and his four trusty servants, each of whom has a miraculous power, such as the ability to run from Constantinople to Vienna in an hour or the ability to shoot an apple from a tree several hundred miles away. In the course of their adventures the five friends, accompanied by Sally, a young girl who has befriended the Baron, fly to the moon and meet its king and queen, descend into a volcano and are swallowed by a huge fish.
Although the exact geographical location of the city is unclear, its location in time is made clear from the beginning:- `The 18th century. The Age of Reason. Wednesday'. This points us to what is to be the film's major theme- the contrast between reason on the one hand and the imagination on the other. Although the Turks are the enemy, the real villain of the film is not is the Sultan but rather the Right Ordinary Horatio Jackson, a high official in the government of the city who represents the unimaginative, overly rational attitude to life and who has no time for Munchausen, who represents the power of dreams and the imagination.
Tim Burton's recent film `Big Fish', which can be seen as a modern slant on the Munchausen story, also deals with this theme- the importance of the imagination, personified by a teller of tall tales, in a rationalistic, literal-minded world. Gilliam's film and Burton's are both highly visually imaginative, but in my view Burton's is the better of the two. The reason is that `Munchausen' is uneven in quality; parts of it are brilliant, but others tend to drag. The `King of the Moon' scenes are perhaps the best example of this. Robin Williams is often described as a great comic actor, but I normally find him at his best when his comic talents are used in the context of a predominantly serious film, such as `Good Morning Vietnam', `Dead Poet's Society' or `Patch Adams'. (The excellent `Mrs Doubtfire' may be considered an exception, but even here the film, amidst the laughter, had some serious points to make). When he acts in a pure comedy, such as `Club Paradise' or `The Birdcage' he can be more self-indulgent and less disciplined, and his rather tedious performance in `Munchausen' was a good example of this.
This unevenness is one of the risks of making a film with an episodic structure; such films can often be hit-and-miss affairs. Nevertheless, although "Munchausen" has its misses, it also has its hits. Jonathan Pryce makes a highly effective villain as the soulless bureaucrat Jackson. John Neville as Munchausen is an equally effective hero. Neville had had few major film roles before this one, made when he was in his sixties. (Munchausen and his servants are all presented as elderly and worried that their powers might be in decline). Particularly touching is his close friendship with young Sally, recalling a grandfather-granddaughter relationship. Imagination in this film is the faculty of the old and the very young- rationalism is the credo of the middle-aged Jackson- exemplifying the dictum that every generation rebels against its parents and makes common cause with its grandparents.
The original Baron Munchausen appears to have been a real character, whose supposed adventures were fictionalised (and no doubt exaggerated even further) by a writer named Rudolf Erich Raspe. (The eighteenth century was clearly not an age purely given over to reason, and surrealism evidently existed long before Andre Breton and Salvador Dali). Enough of the surreal lunacy of those tales (balloons made of women's underwear, a man travelling on a cannonball) has survived into the film to make it watchable, despite its weaknesses. 6/10.
The film was, of course, directed by Terry Gilliam of `Monty Python' fame, and the influence of that series is obvious. Like two of the Python films, `Monty Python and the Holy Grail' and `Life of Brian', it consists of a number of sketches strung together to form a loosely-connected narrative, set against a historical background. An even closer comparison, however, might be with Gilliam's Python animations, as the film relies less on verbal wit than either `Holy Grail' or `Brian' and more on surrealism and visual inventiveness. The plot is very loose and episodic, with each sketch depicting one of the many adventures of Munchausen and his four trusty servants, each of whom has a miraculous power, such as the ability to run from Constantinople to Vienna in an hour or the ability to shoot an apple from a tree several hundred miles away. In the course of their adventures the five friends, accompanied by Sally, a young girl who has befriended the Baron, fly to the moon and meet its king and queen, descend into a volcano and are swallowed by a huge fish.
Although the exact geographical location of the city is unclear, its location in time is made clear from the beginning:- `The 18th century. The Age of Reason. Wednesday'. This points us to what is to be the film's major theme- the contrast between reason on the one hand and the imagination on the other. Although the Turks are the enemy, the real villain of the film is not is the Sultan but rather the Right Ordinary Horatio Jackson, a high official in the government of the city who represents the unimaginative, overly rational attitude to life and who has no time for Munchausen, who represents the power of dreams and the imagination.
Tim Burton's recent film `Big Fish', which can be seen as a modern slant on the Munchausen story, also deals with this theme- the importance of the imagination, personified by a teller of tall tales, in a rationalistic, literal-minded world. Gilliam's film and Burton's are both highly visually imaginative, but in my view Burton's is the better of the two. The reason is that `Munchausen' is uneven in quality; parts of it are brilliant, but others tend to drag. The `King of the Moon' scenes are perhaps the best example of this. Robin Williams is often described as a great comic actor, but I normally find him at his best when his comic talents are used in the context of a predominantly serious film, such as `Good Morning Vietnam', `Dead Poet's Society' or `Patch Adams'. (The excellent `Mrs Doubtfire' may be considered an exception, but even here the film, amidst the laughter, had some serious points to make). When he acts in a pure comedy, such as `Club Paradise' or `The Birdcage' he can be more self-indulgent and less disciplined, and his rather tedious performance in `Munchausen' was a good example of this.
This unevenness is one of the risks of making a film with an episodic structure; such films can often be hit-and-miss affairs. Nevertheless, although "Munchausen" has its misses, it also has its hits. Jonathan Pryce makes a highly effective villain as the soulless bureaucrat Jackson. John Neville as Munchausen is an equally effective hero. Neville had had few major film roles before this one, made when he was in his sixties. (Munchausen and his servants are all presented as elderly and worried that their powers might be in decline). Particularly touching is his close friendship with young Sally, recalling a grandfather-granddaughter relationship. Imagination in this film is the faculty of the old and the very young- rationalism is the credo of the middle-aged Jackson- exemplifying the dictum that every generation rebels against its parents and makes common cause with its grandparents.
The original Baron Munchausen appears to have been a real character, whose supposed adventures were fictionalised (and no doubt exaggerated even further) by a writer named Rudolf Erich Raspe. (The eighteenth century was clearly not an age purely given over to reason, and surrealism evidently existed long before Andre Breton and Salvador Dali). Enough of the surreal lunacy of those tales (balloons made of women's underwear, a man travelling on a cannonball) has survived into the film to make it watchable, despite its weaknesses. 6/10.