The Fabulous Baron Munchausen (1962)

That was an excellent one.

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Disturbing yet enthralling

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

The Czech master of animation Karel Zeman brings to life the amazing adventures of one of the greatest characters of literature, the inimitable Baron Munchhausen. However this is not a mere retelling of his adventures. Zeman's version is also a celebration of imagination, love, dashing heroics and the dreams.An astronaut arrives on the moon and to his bewilderment he's met by Barbicane, Nicholl and Michel Ardan from Jules Verne's From The Earth to the Moon (it's good to know they arrived safely to the moon), and by Cyrano de Bergerac. They could easily have been accompanied by Astolfo, Lucian and other famous Moon travelers. It's clear this is meant to be taken symbolically: the moon has been the inspiration of countless poets, inventors and writers, it's our most cherished symbol of imagination. What better place to start such a fantastic story? On the moon is also Baron Munchhausen. He mistakes the astronaut for a 'moonling' and decides to take him to Earth to teach him Earthly customs. But they arrive on a mysterious, 19th-century-like world, which seems a mix of Gustave Dore and Piranesi. There they fight Turks, live inside gigantic whales, and defeat invading armies and. All the while the astronaut and a princess fall in love. The ending to this heroic love story is cheerful, bright and inspiring.Amusing as the characters' antics may be, the great pull of this movie is really the amazing visuals. Zeman uses a fascinating cross of live action and animated sets with unique hues of colors that give the world a menacing and enigmatic feel. The use of shadows and silhouettes are amazing too, as are the puppets.Unfortunately unknown by the masses, this movie also has the reputation of having inspired Terry Gilliam's own Baron Munchhausen. One can only hope more directors took inspiration from this movie. Modern cinema, with its monotonous colors and unimaginative stories, could only benefit.

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.

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.

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.