The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
An outpost representing the achievements of art, science and exploration of the Age of Reason, that firm foundation of civilisation and its tall walls representing the sum of gathered knowledge offer little protection against the assault of the forces of the enraged Ottoman Empire, the beleaguered citizens huddled inside a theatre to distract themselves from the ongoing siege.
The show to which they devote themselves an example of exquisite and ambitious stagecraft dedicated to the adventures of the famous Baron Munchausen, it is hampered by deaths among the stagehands from cannon fire and interrupted early in the second act by the arrival of an elderly gentleman who dismisses what is presented, claiming that he is in fact the real Baron Munchausen and launching into his own dubious version of outrageous events.
A dramatic production halted by external events, it is perhaps apt that it should occur in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen as directed by Terry Gilliam from a script co-written with Charles McKeown based on the Rudolf Erich Raspes’ 1785 book, itself inspired by the German aristocrat Hieronymus Karl Friedrich, Freiherr von Münchhausen, Gilliam’s own films having suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune such as floods and the untimely death of lead actors during principal photography.
Gilliam’s fifth film, following shortly after the fantastical whimsies of Time Bandits and the dystopian epic of Brazil, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen would be his most ambitious production yet with a budget which would eventually reach over $45 million, only a fraction of which would be recouped at the box office when the film was released in early 1989, failing to replicate the huge success of Gilliam’s former Monty Python associates John Cleese and Michael Palin who had introduced the world to A Fish Called Wanda the previous summer.
That dismissal by the viewing public was not altogether surprising, for the film is challenging, bereft of major stars and lacking a simple hook, at times exhausting to behold for there is simply so much happening in every frame, but it is also perhaps the greatest example of Gilliam’s artistic vision, every set, prop and costume exquisite and eccentric though in service of a film more digression and diversion than actual story.
Soaring above barbs, battlements and cotton wool clouds in a balloon of silky knickers donated by the woman of the city, Baron Munchausen (The X-Files’ John Neville) and his young companion Sally (Splice’s Sarah Polley) encounter Robin Williams’ King of the Moon, predictably suffering from lunacy, Oliver Reed’s fire god Vulcan, involved in an industrial dispute with his workers, and a watery leviathan, all the time pursued by the Angel of Death whose shadow hangs over the film.
As overblown and preposterous as the Baron’s own tales, from theatrical flats painted in a cacophony of architectural styles to the musical torture chamber of Sultan Mahmud (The Androids of Tara‘s Peter Jeffrey) to the celestial domes in which hangs the crescent moon to the glory of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus made flesh (Gattaca’s Uma Thurman) and the wrecked ships in the belly of the beast, the delineation between location, set and miniature hosting puppets becomes blurred, the telling more important than what is told, escapism a surrogate for the need to escape.
Released by the Criterion Collection as a new 4K restoration, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen are predictably filled with delights, among them a commentary from Gilliam and McKeown, a documentary, special effects footage, deleted scenes, storyboards for unfilmed scenes, a video essay on Munchausen, marketing material and archive material, a suitably voluminous treasure trove.
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is available on Blu-ray from Criterion now
