User Reviews

Karel Zeman was a genius if visual artistry. His playful use of 19th century engravings in a live-action movie is so original and it works so well. Everybody who praises the Gilliam's Munchhausen should hold the judgement until he sees this Munchhausen. If anybody from the video industry watches this database, please make this movie available at least on VHS. And once you are at it, I would add two more Zeman's films that are made with the same charm, technical wizardry, nostalgia and artistic vision: Vynalez zkazy (1958) ("The invention of Destruction" in English) and Blaznova kronika (1963) ("The Fools' Chronicles"). In the chronological order, I consider the three films a loose trilogy that uses the esthetics of the 19th, 18th, and 17th century, respectively, to study the timeless human situation.

Live action with stop-motion and puppet animation. A modern astronaut meets Baron Munchausen on the Moon after landing his spacecraft there. The entire film has a quaint, charming 19th-Century look, mood and feel, thanks to the Baron himself narrating the picture, and some of the most imaginative production design, special visual effects and movie sets ever put on celluloid. Like his previous film, The FABULOUS WORLD OF JULES VERNE (AN INVENTION FOR DESTRUCTION), Zeman uses 19th-Century woodcut engravings modeled after those of Gustav Dore as his guides for most of the intricately-fashioned backdrops in this marvelous movie. Highly imaginative in every way possible, this film is like a turn-of-the-century Georges Melies nickelodeon reel in appearance, but has a mysterious, mystical, dreamlike quality which makes this look like a lurid, delightful dream. Often hilarious, it is full of humor, wit and charm. Zeman is clearly a master in control of his medium. One of his best films ever. Another film I would love to have on Video that is still inexplicably unavailable in America.

I don't see how anyone will ever top Karel Zeman's version of this story. It's unfortunate that it is so difficult to find. It has a beautiful score and the execution of the animation and visual effects are flawless. Zeman's artwork is quite amazing and is the grandfather of the look in films that was yet to come with the advent of CGI. He combines animation, matte paintings and stop-motion puppets to create the world of Baron Prasil or Baron Munchausen if you saw it in the United States. Released to laserdisc back in 1989, it is now only available on Japanese Region 2 NTSC DVD. I managed to get a copy but it is not dubbed or subtitled into English but that's okay because in a Karel Zeman movie, the visuals ARE the story so you can probably figure out what is happening without understanding the dialogue. Some people consider this to be Zeman's finest film. I have a hard time deciding if I like this one better than INVENTION OF DESTRUCTION or JOURNEY TO PRIMEVAL AGES. In any case, it's a remarkable and unique film so catch it if you can.

"Baron Munchausen" ("Baron Prasil" in Czech) is one of the most charming and poetic movies among those thousands which I saw ...

It is that very rare kind of movie I love to see for dozen and dozen of times, in virtually any mood and time ...

Old illustrations by Gustave Dore brought to life by an unforgettable visual imagination of Karel Zeman ...

Everything dressed in a soft melancholy of an enchanting music by great Zdenek Liska, so simple and sophisticated at the same time...

Though Zeman is mostly painting his magic world by his unique visual creativity, those able to understand the Czech dialogues get another lovely dimension, inhabited by fine jokes and never-tiring games with words...

And of course, Milos Kopecky as the Baron is the very symbol and soul of Munchausen ...

An essential classic movie for every true film fan (not recommended for nervous consumers and victims of Hollywood moneymakers, however).

How much those modern versions of Munchausen (and whatever are their modifications and names) miss the point of this magic Zeman's version: its fundamental visual craftsmanship, soft melancholy of a fable, an inspired music, and everything in a perfect union ...

How poor and tedious is 99.99% of that Hollywood stuff in comparison with this Zeman's masterpiece ...

No, they cannot do such a movie any more with all those naturalistic computer tricks, but a total lack of Karel Zeman's insight and visual poetry...

Zeman's magnum opus is every bit as compelling and otherworldly as the legends indicate. In fact, as I also have FABULOUS WORLD OF JULES VERNE & ON THE COMET on tape, take my word for it: PRASIL/MUNCHAUSEN is the Zeman to see if your only seeing one. Given those hallucinatory Gustav Dore-meets- Arthur Rackham visuals, the wildly disjointed narrative and from-hunger post-synched soundtrack actually ADD to the out-of-body experience that is this film. It's like stumbling into somebody else's fever dream. While Zeman's other films generally succumb to a deadly torpor around halfway through, this one is just so jampacked with surreal oddities and unforgettable bizarro setpieces that you're in flabbergasted joy right through to the end. Terry Gilliam (a major Zeman fan) attempted a lavish remake that missed the whole point of this film's one-of-a-kind quality: the sense throughout that this is a handcrafted film, an artisan's project free of studio meddling, brand name stars or big budget elephantiasis. PRASIL's amateurism is its crowning glory. Essential viewing...at least once.

'The Outrageous Baron Munchausen (1961)' almost feels like a series of short skits. There's a narrative flow but no real arcs or a through-line other than the eponymous character. It's not like each set-piece or location is disconnected, just that there isn't much connective tissue and actually very little in terms of an overarching story. We just follow the protagonist through his numerous, possibly imaginary, intertwined adventures. This makes for an experience that's often whimsical and wonderful but never really all that compelling beyond its surface level, despite its visual splendour. Of course, it's brought to life with a laudable verve and a cartoon-esque construction, with its numerous special effects combining with its old-fashioned colour-tinted cinematography to a strange but satisfying effect. The aesthetic really is charming, if somewhat out-dated (even, arguably, for its time). The theme of imagination, and the fact that our narrator is perhaps somewhat unreliable, isn't ever fully explored, though, so you just have to accept all the brilliantly conceived wacky weirdness that comes in both the scenery and the plot, something that's relatively easy to do but isn't actually all that fulfilling. This feeling is furthered since there aren't any real characters, at least not in the traditional 'development' sense, and that the playful sight gags - which are sometimes strangely reminiscent of silent films - can only carry you so far in terms of engagement. It's not a bad effort at all and it's certainly an entertaining time, but it's a lot easier to become invested in the visuals than in the story. 6/10.

One of the most imaginative, faithful, haunting versions of Munchausen ever. Zeman was a genius that no one seems to remember. A masterpiece of live action and stop motion using Doré's etchings as a springboard.

The fact that this movie hasn't ben resurrected and distributed (on video at least), is a true tragedy. I haven't seen it for years, but I'll never forget it. Just stunning.

I agree: Get this Stateside, somehow. I was lucky to view a German-marketed Region 2 DVD, opting to hear the Czech dialogue with English subtitles, some of which were embarrassingly fleeting. I may next opt to listen to it in German...

I learned of Zeman as a youth with the occasional broadcast of "The Fabulous World of Jules Verne" (in a word, fabulous). This retelling of select tales of Baron Munchausen appeared with the next highest recommendation from fellow users.

It's a retelling with great style and no small amount of innovation. It had to have influenced the animation of Terry Gilliam among many others. Principally stop-motion, occasionally mixed with cel animation and live action, and an at-times monochrome background likely changed by hand. Of course the style is dated but well suited for a dated story, and therein lies the film's timeless charm.

Familiarity with the tales may slow the viewer's perception of the film's pace. The sandwiched sequence is also familiar: The visit to the Sultan's palace; escape to the sea, getting swallowed by a whale and keeping company in its cavernous gut; and the comical resolution of a battle between warring European powers.

What's unfamiliar is an opening and ending with a cosmonaut who meets other fabled travelers to the Moon and eventually wins the hand of a lovely princess on whom the Baron also has designs. But I frankly need re-view and determine just how the princess dismounts from "Tony's" swimming horse while he goes straight to another island...

Genuine wit, some of it very dry and some mixed with slapstick, helps bridge if not punctuate the FX. ("Jules Verne" doesn't have as much.) An imaginative musical score that verges on the wacky. And acting that is refreshingly relaxed and subdued. This Baron is no blow-hard but so innately gallant that he just can't help but rely upon his most powerful weapon...his imagination...to repeatedly save the day.

The film is perhaps not for the children unless one or both parents are around to help explain the historical context, the action, and its decidedly off-the-track pace. But it's a durable treat nonetheless.

Probably the most charming of the filmic adaptations of Raspe's 'Baron Munchausen". Czech animator Zeman creates a wonderland by combining live actors, animated models, and old prints to relate the Baron's marvelous adventures. A tour de force of the visual imagination.

Very affective fantasy world with great colors. This movie wouldn't be anything without Karel Zeman. He brings the story to life with his interesting animation mixed with the filmed material. I can't say that the movie is all good or the best of Zeman, but you really can rest your eyes on the screen. Gilliam's version of the story is possibly a little better, but as these are so different, you can't really compare.

Zeman's Sinbad the Sailor short films are much more important to me than this one. Their story is more interesting and the animation even more fun. Anyways..this movie is about a mysterious Baron who have been through all the exciting adventures and he tells about them.

It begins with cosmonaut Rudolf Jellinek landing on the moon. He follows footprints which lead him to the gentlemen of Jules Verne's expedition. They introduce him to their seniors on the site: Cyrano de Bergerac and the Baron Munchausen. Munchausen takes the Moon Man (for so he must be) on a trip to the Earth in what appears to be the 18th century. There they rescue the fair princess Jana Brejchová from the Sultan of Turkey and go on a series of imaginative adventures.

It must have been a dangerous movie to produce in Czechoslovakia in 1962. It celebrates imagination. It's not even imagination in the service of anything except itself. It's the imagination of a boy, just looking up from his loved library of Jules Verne and Alexandre Dumas and noticing girls for the first time. The set designs reinforce this. They look like Dore steel engravings, and the stock is toned, occasionally for what seems to be early two-strip Technicolor, with flashes of bright colors. Munchausen fights ten thousand bashi-bazouks; he flies about on cannonballs and dwells in a whale for months. He does whatever he pleases, as the fancy strikes him, and Jellinek follows along. Will he ever develop an imagination of his own?

It's clear to me that Terry Gilliam mined this movie extensive for his own MUNCHAUSEN; there are too many settings and incidents for it to be otherwise. He would have been 24 when it premiered in the US at Pacificon. I have no doubt that he saw it there and it left an impression in his mind at least as great as in my own.

Zeman created a hugely imaginative version of the Munchausen story; he is a visualist along the lines of Georges Melies ("A Trip To the Moon") who, through his elaborate matte and composite shots, points the way to the boundless digital worlds of Lucas's "The Phantom Menace." Despite Zeman's trippy whimsy and resourcefulness with special effects, the film is mostly unengaging, due to slack direction and detached performances. The strongest elements are an exciting horseback chase sequence carried by a rousing score, and the Baron's perpetually pathological optimism, which is central to the story and acts as a hilarious counterpoint to the fantastic events in which he finds himself. Despite the film's faults, it has to be appreciated for Zeman's distinctive overall style, and how it must reflect the artistic sensibility of its day in Eastern Europe. (Interesting observation: the eerie Theremin chords which permeate the scene by the steamboat recall the same device used a few years later on the extraterrestrial sets on "Star Trek.") Zeman's style is said to be an influence on the work of Terry Gilliam (seen most sharply in his "Monty Python" cut-out animation). As far as comparing Gilliam's 1989 version of "Munchausen" to Zeman's, Gilliam's is definitely superior: more hedonistically fantastic, entertaining, and fun. For all of Zeman's craftsmanlike wonders, his version is indeed rickety in comparison, but must be admired for the heights of fantasy it reached with the considerably more limited resources available to him.

By now, nearly everyone should be familiar with the Munchausen story or, at least, some portion of it even if shi didn't grown up on these German drinking boasts which got way out of hand.

This is not the first or last treatment of the braggart Baron, but this version has a charm that many others lack.

The film is shot, predominantly in sepia tone with occasional bits in exaggerated color for artistic emphasis. Those who recall the pink coat in Schindler's List will have some idea of what is happening. But, in this case, the effect is not so much an attempt to indicate a major event that was necessarily slighted in the film. Rather, it helps to emphasize the aspects of the fantastic and the fairy tale romanticism that the director is emphasizing.

The live actors are shot against an animated background and are often blithely unaware of the fantastic things that are sweeping around them while they concern themselves with the essentially silly issues of their lives. This is Czech animation which seems rather exotic to those of us raised on Disney-esque 'realism'. Still, it's stylism adds a charm to the film that helps to reinforce the multiple layers that the director has built into this piece.

You should not attempt to become involved in the film so much as to sit back and marvel at the world that is passing unobserved by those passing through it.

When it has finished,you will want to watch it again and again to catch how all the different visual layers interact in your mind if not on the screen.

If I had to compare this effect to any other film, I suppose I would choose the way that Altman weaves the foreground and background into the midground in "M*A*S*H", though the two films are very different and have completely different statements about the world.

This is a fantasy and it is truly fantastic, but only on an adult level. Children will have many questions that all come down to 'why is it happening that way?' For children, fantasy is a chance to dream dreams and play games. This is a film for adults that has found an adult way to present the wit and contradiction of the original stories while acting out the ingenuousness of the characters' actions.

See this one. It deserves your attention.

Unfortunately, I was only able to see the Czech version one time. But it made a lasting impression on me and I've been looking for it ever since but just can't seem to get my hands on it. It's elusive, but well worth searching out. I thought I had it once at a rental store, only to find out it was the 1943 Nazi version and it just didn't capture the surrealism that the 1961 Czech version did. When Terry Gilliam's version came out in 1988, it disappointed in comparison as well.

So, if you liked the 1988 remake, you owe it to yourself to see the Czech version - if you can get your hands on it!

In effect, the other commentary of this movie says everything that could be say for this excellent movie. I want to say that this movie and "On the comet (Na komete) are two of the best animation movies that I ever saw. I saw this movie in 35 mm at "Cinemateca Uruguayan" because there was playing a Karel Zeman's homage, but I think that it's necessary to review this classics films and to get it on VHS or DVD. Zeman is a genius director with the mix of animated stop-motion frames and people, filming in studios or in natural locations and also drawing over the negative, painting it, all the technics are used with masterly.

"Like his precious output, the film makes for an eye-opening experience exclusively for its novelty in play, while the narrative shambles along higgledy-piggledy, the hybrid elision eliminates any sense of agency in the plot, and there is no enough novelty can save THE FABULOUS BARON MUNCHAUSEN from sagging into an exhausting succession of show pieces, all mechanical but no feelings. The issue with Zeman's visual "objet d'art" is that it is a reversal gestaltism - the whole is perceived less than the sum of its intelligently designed parts. Zeman is a superlatively diligent and inventive craftsman, a poetic visionary, but his films reckon without characterization, all the actors are merely pawns functioning on auto pilot, humor also runs low in his moonshot. A visit to Zeman museum (located in Prague, near Charles Bridge) may prove worthier than sitting through his feature-length endeavors."

-

Since the first DVD release in the late 2000s there circulates a version of the movie, which some say is the original cut of the movie, some say it is a bastardized version made abroad when the movie rights were sold after the fall of the iron curtain, some say it is the cut Zeman made after the premiere to speed-up the pace of the film and some say it is even the only relevant cut and everything else is just working copies which were never supposed to see daylight...

Whatever the truth is, this is most likely the version of the film you will see or already saw. But there exists a longer cut of the movie - about 6 minutes longer, which extends about 27 scenes. Some minor, but some major - like the scene where Baron realizes that Toník is his younger self and reconciles with him inwardly which brings the story to closure (seriously I can't find a reason why would Zeman cut this scene). But overall, due to various reasons (like continuity, soundtrack cue's coherence, humor punchlines), many people believe that this longer cut is actually the original version of the film (or at least qualifies as a "director's cut"). However, the only sources where you can find this cut are VHS distribution and recordings of Czech and Slovak television broadcasts. All the digital media contain the shorter cut of the movie. To top everything, the movie was gloriously restored quite recently but even when there were voices asking where is this longer cut, no one wanted to hear them.

I will not lie that I'm a fan of digital restoration. I believe movies should be digitally restored only to presentable form if absolutely necessary, but certainly not to a point when you remove every speck from every frame. You'll end up with something artificial, robbed of its authenticity and character. But most importantly, what we got in this case for generations to come: this movie will be seen, not because of some unfortunate strike of fate, but because of some pettifogging reasons of legality or insulted rights-owners pride, in its curtailed version but with a pristine look. What a bargain!

The usage of color droplets in water combined with black and white or highly decolonized film make for impressive visual effects which give it a unique and timeless look.

Pairing Baron Munichhausen with a modern day Astronaut is a fresh new take on the story. Although the story loses somewhat its momentum once the focus shifts to the love affair between the astronaut and the princess.

Zeman's Baron Munchausen is perhaps not as narratively streamlined, which is a peculiar thing to say, as Invention for Destruction, and frankly I think Terry Gilliam (who apparently/surprisingly saw this only when preparing to make his adaptation, though it may make sense when one realizes this didn't have distribution in the US where he would have seen it at the time) and, in a slightly different context but no less vignette-packed and dreamlike, George Miller with Three Thousand Years of Longing leaped off into greater effects and emotional context. It's the kind of motion picture where a narrator is necessary not simply for it to have a Fairy Tale Storybook feel but becsuse otherwise we would lose the thread here and there.

But Karel Zeman and his collaborators were fearless in combining elements and effects, never stopping to be concerned if a stop motion snake in one shot for example cutting to a puppet in another would be off and it actually works great, and even if I don't connect much with Munchausen or his companions I can enjoy this as simply a series of practical effects wonders and the occasional bit of very odd and idiosyncratic comedy; of course there's another boat inside that sea monster Munchausen sails into (and lo and behold their lights still work!) I also admire the fact that Zelman decided to use color like a kid with a Crayola box, creating and combining colors sometimes from shot to shot, and yet it all flows and feels connected because it's like flipping through a moving picture book (matter of fact the events come one after another like a child telling someone a story that takes many bizarre and non sensical turns, which is part of the charm).

If it's a little less than a masterpiece then being very entertaining and occasionally awe inspiring is enough. I do wonder if kids would be a little bored by this today.

Fabulous animation, wonderful creativity, and a whimsical tale from Karel Zeman. The artwork is just stunning, and there are many memorable visual elements, including the lunar landscape, Moorish architecture, clandestine meetings between lovers, undersea horseback riding, dude riding a cannonball, and various creatures, some imaginary. The story is relatively low-key but it's peppered with humor and delightful little touches. If you like Georges Melies, Ray Harryhausen, Terry Gilliam, Tim Burton, or Wes Anderson, this will probably be in your wheelhouse. I loved it.

Oh, and this quote was incredibly timely for 1962, as the race for the moon was in its early stages: "Until now, Luna has belonged to us poets and dreamers, daring fantasists, adventurers in powdered wigs, fantasists in frock coats, and those in bizarre helmets out of the pages of the latest novels. And of course to lovers. Yes, lovers' claims on the moon have always been the strongest. But now I fling my hat aloft that it may sail up to the stars and welcome on our behalf all you brave souls hurtling at this very moment into the outstretched arms of the cosmos!"