The Adventures of Baron Munchausen20th Anniversary Edition

I'd never knew this guy actually existed in real life, more over, never knew there was a syndrome named after him either, "Munchausen Syndrome". Aside from that, this movie holds some bearing to it as a cult classic. I'll bet that at one point in time in everyone's life they've seen this movie but just cannot recollect the name of the title but can remember considerable elements of this movie that made it worthwhile to remember. Such was the case for me because I remember seeing this movie on cable television back in '96 on the Showtime channel which means it would air almost every other hour but I didn't have a problem with that at all! I loved this movie! It's a movie that plays on the simple fascination of fantasy and the innocence of the imagination in a world that's super-logical and ill-ridden with rules. Though dated, it still has one of the most memorable visuals I've ever seen which make it ever so charming in its conception. The history behind the creation of this film is a bleak one which compromises for so much of this movie's construction. To put it lightly, the movie had 100% the potential but was only given 45%... if it were given the full attention and care it demanded, this would probably be one of the greatest films of all time, however, complications occurred throughout the span of its lifetime and shares a similar fate to another movie, "The Thief and the Cobbler." History beside, this movie is a delightful addition to your movie base and a great movie to just sit down and enjoy to when you've absolutely got nothing else better to do but forget about the world you live in and enter Baron von Munchausen on one of his zany story-adventures. The movie itself houses some interesting ideas of story-telling which I can say have inspired me in many ways but those are personal notions regarding. Hooking back to the movie's visuals, allow me to detail one such scene which involves Uma Thurman, in probably one of her most memorable scenes filmed as an actress, and its her arrival on the scene in an illustrious, filmographic introduction to "The Birth of Venus". Really, words cannot describe how visually appealing that scene is, and with the play of music that goes on in it... augh... I'm still breathtaken by the wonderful imagery that was filmed with such intimacy and care.

Historically based on a real person: this movie takes you back to the times of the 'Terrible Turks" and their invasion of Europe/Germany-Austria, et al. It's a historical adventure of some real events -- mixed in with much hyperbole, some fantasy and humor! Lots of european scenery and history -- and entertaining.

A thrilling, lively Classical-era fanfare heralds the Columbia logo and signals high adventure and romance, as we open in "the late 18th Century", the "Age of Reason", on a "Wednesday." Already we know that we are in the universe of the man behind Brazil, Terry Gilliam as the expectation caused by the opening chords is quickly subverted by the grim wartime feeling of a starving city under siege by the Turks. Even death itself makes an early appearance, a black winged skeletal angel that will continue to show up throughout the film and which seems to presage an ominous and early end indeed for the characters we meet in the beginning. Young Sally is the daughter of a traveling actor (and head of his theatrical troupe) who plays the magical Baron Munchausen, a fabulous hero famed for his tall tales revolving around such feats as a trip to the moon and the theft of a sultan's treasure. The pathetic troupe puts on its poor mockery of theater in a disintegrating, cavernous building as the town's leader, the Right Ordinary Horatio Jackson (note that title), only to be upstaged by the "real" Baron (John Neville), a drunken and crazy old man - with a real and sharp sword - who proceeds to tell the story of how the town got into this mess.... Gilliam's film is the summation of all of his work as director up until this point, blending the childhood wonder of Time Bandits, the satire on bureaucracy and the feeling for the importance of imagination in the face of hopeless "rationality" of "Brazil", the broad humor of Monty Python and the references to Alice in Wonderland and medieval romance and tall tales of "Jabberwocky". Most of the film charts in a relatively linear way the adventures of the (real) Baron and Sally as they fly off in a balloon made of ladies' underwear in search of Munchausen's four fabulous servants - all of whom we have glimpsed in the opening scene, denying that they are anything but actors. Is the Baron crazy? Is the child Sally the only one who believes him, or in fact the only one who can experience his exploits, or save him from death? The film explores these and many other questions of storytelling and belief and the Baron grows more youthful with success, ages with failure -- as his friends seem at first not to recognize him, and then to be too old and feeble to help him. The baron himself loses faith at times, and only Sally is there to prop him up. At the end, a mind-boggling mixture of battles, triumph, death and funeral, resurrection and above all the Story of The Way It Should End all fuse into one of the most joyous and potent conclusions in film. The director draws on a wonderful array of sources for this film, which is certainly postmodern in the lightest yet most serious and beautiful sense - there are nods to "Alice in Wonderland", "The Wizard of Oz", "Pinocchio", Renaissance painting, "Cyrano de Bergerac" and the 1940 "Thief of Bagdad" among countless others, but the film never seems derivative or obvious; always it is focused on the pure joy of the tale and the strength and power of myth-making in the face of the tedium and joylessness represented by the unscrupulous and ultimately murderous Jackson - played with vicious glee by Jonathan Pryce in an ironic reversal of his role in Gilliam's previous film, "Brazil". The cast is uniformly fine -- some may be irritated by Sarah Polley's admittedly shrill Sally though it seemed an appropriate (and necessary) characterization to me -- with standouts being Pryce, Eric Idle as the fleet-footed but somewhat dimwitted Berthold, and John Neville as the Baron in one of the most unjustly slighted performances from a banner year for film. Giuseppe Rotunno's photography makes much more of an impact on the big screen for sure but it is certainly beautiful enough (particularly in the outdoors/sky sequences) even on the DVD; and Michael Kamen's score is one of my all-time favorites and possibly the best work in his film career. The dialog may strike some as odd, in its mixture of late-20th-century idioms (particularly when voiced by the King of the Moon, Robin Williams) and the more carefully "authentic" 200-year-old jargon of characters like Jackson -- but like most elements of the film, this is carefully designed to throw us off and keep our sense of what is real and not always in doubt. This is a film I've seen over and over - it scored a big impression when I saw it new, alas not on very many people - and it grows greater with each re-watch. Gilliam really manages here to articulate a very profound statement about how we are losing out way, about how the bottom line and the "rational" way of winning a war - or making a film - may in fact be heartless, cold, and ultimately more dead than the Baron seems to be just before the triumphant finish of the film. As much as I love "Brazil, this is easily my favorite Terry Gilliam film, and in its failure ultimately a signal for a new and less potent (though still interesting) direction in his work. A triumph then, and a tragedy - the film is the career, the career is the film.

It is one of those inexplicable quirks of Hollywood producers that if a film goes wildly over-budget, as this one did, instead of doing their best to push it and get their money back, they moan publicly about the financial disaster and kill the movie. They did it to Heaven's Gate, now at last being seen for the work of brilliance that it is, and they did it to Terry Gilliam's The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen. This is especially tragic when it comes to this marvelous work of one of the most underrated directors of our time. Even now, years after it was first released (and I saw it then in a cinema), it is still a thrill to watch. The in-camera FX are as good as any that would be done now with computer graphics and huge budgets (this film actually cost $47 mil. which ain't much by modern standards). To my mind this film stands alongside The Wizard Of Oz as the greatest children's films ever made. And I include all the gruesome stuff. Kids love being scared. Don't you remember the thrill of peering through your fingers at the flying monkeys and the wicked witch? Well, give yourself and your kids a treat and get this movie!!

Worth at least one view, needs more than one to fit more puzzle pieces in place. I'm really happy to finally have it. For people who didn't read the book, it's a parody of superheroes stories, from before superheroes were even a thing. Started as a collection of tall/dreamstate tales similar to the Cyrano travels to the Moon and Sun, or Guliver's Travels, the Wizard of OZ books or Alice in Wonderland. In similar vein, as self-derisive "fantasy", it affords the leeway to sneak in a lot of social critique; some of it does shine through the movie in classic Monty Python dryness. Some such critique goes by so fast to be almost missed, like the one involving the character Sting cameos in. The BluRay main menu animation is a quick summary of the movie. Just like the movie is a quick summary of the Baron's adventures. Sadly, this is the best adaptation we have so far. There's enough material in these stories to fit in a TV miniseries to even start fleshing out all the characters, let alone include the stories from the book which didn't fit in the movie. Everything in the movie is a sketch, some of them are self-reflecting and intertwined. That includes the lavish decors and costumes. Of course, that fits the director's style just fine, a match for the rest of his movies and shows. That comes straight out of the book one may say... there are tens of adventures and hundreds of twists in the tiny book itself (even in the smallest first edition from 1785, slightly increased in 1796 and then in 1901). As it's directed, the movie doesn't quite make up its mind on whether it's a children's story or an adult one. So both viewer categories have to make concessions on the rendition, the young ones with a bit more patience as the story lumbers along and doesn't really explain the various versions of the characters, the grownups with reading between the lines. And that's not limited to things like feet tickling, or the varying [in]compatibility of mind and body over time. That example's from an over-the-top yet typical Robin Williams sketch ([un]credited as an Italian "King of Everything"). While the book is told as an autobiography, the movie adds the "theatric" layer, a bit of story-in-a-story stack that doesn't quite pop out all the way back to the movie's starting reality (or pops out too far, depending on interpretation of the ending), just like it sometimes happens in the 1001 nights stories about stories.

Loved this film -- it has held up over time. Plenty of extras covering off the difficulties of getting the film made, including disputes between the producer and director over cost.

This is a wonderfully inventive film, full of striking images, marvellous performances and a lovely streak of dark humour running through it. Gilliam's brain must be constantly ticking with new ideas to amaze his audience as he directs these brilliant films. Oliver Reed shows, like he did in the Musketeer films, that he is well suited for comedy roles, playing the god Vulcan as a childish, jealous child in a God's body. Robin Williams gives a wildly over the top performance as The King Of The Moon, but its perfectly suited for this film. John Neville is perfect as the ageless Baron, and Eric Idle and Sarah Polley also impress in their roles. Really, its a film about having an imagination and not losing it as you grow up, as at the beginning the only person to believe the Baron is the child, but by the end of the film our hero has won over his adult audience too. This is a great film, Gilliam's masterpiece in my opinion, and can be enjoyed by adults and children alike. 5 out of 5

Las aventuras del Barón que ya había leído en mi infancia, (tengo 87 años) están fantásticamente interpretadas e n la película.