The Adventures of Baron Munchausen [1988]

In the late 18th Century, in a city besieged by the Turks, the Henry Salt Players brave a collapsing theatre and put on a play that travesties the adventures of the famous liar Baron Munchausen. A doddery old man [John Neville] claiming to be the genuine Baron storms the stage and insists on telling his considerably more bizarre version of the tale, and spins it out to include new exploits and endeavours. Accompanied by Salt's trusting daughter Sally [Sarah Polley], the Baron visits the Moon, the caverns of Vulcan and the interior of a monster fish in search of his old superendowed comrades in arms, planning to return and save the city. But the spectre of Death is haunting the Baron, and also that of Reason, personified by bureaucrat Jonathan Pryce, both of which would put and end forever to his whimsical tale-spinning.

The Baron Munchausen shown here is rather more like Don Quixote than the strutting, boastful bullshitter of Raspe's original, and Terry Gilliam strains hard to give his picaresque film an underlying theme in the Baron's commitment to the fantastical in the face of a deadening world. The film is a lavish and spectacular epic, with crowd-pleasing battle scenes, stunts, monsters, comic turns and special effects tricks. But, for all its scope of setting and imagination, it's surprisingly monotonous in its tone. As in Gilliam's earlier Jabberwocky and Time Bandits, too many of the cast are simply encouraged to run around in circles shouting at each other while the camera savours the gorgeous art direction.

John Neville's Baron is a remote creation, occasionally romantic as in his dalliance with Venus [Uma Thurman, straining the PG rating as she emerges from the half-shell in only her hair] and occasionally dashing as in his final beheading of a line of Turkish generals, but never quite appealing or amusing enough to keep this monolith on the move. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen has images that you'll remember forever - the boat sailing the sands of the moon is a particularly lovely shot - and characters, jokes and plot you'll forget next week.
KIM NEWMAN

First Published In: City Limits [issue unknown]

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