El barón de la castaña

"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...

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.

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.

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.

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.