67. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

Terry Gilliam, 1988

Holy catfish! Two Terry Gilliam movies in a row?! What are the odds? Is he bribing me? Still here it is and, not only is it another Terry Gilliam movie, it is another movie where we’re never quite sure if the main character is who he claims or if he’s just a nut job. The character in question is Hieronymus Karl Frederick Baron von Munchausen. The Baron is, apparently, a German folk hero with many adventures and misadventures under his belt. Thus, it is no surprise that a German theater is putting on a play of the Baron’s adventures as a war wages beyond the walls of the town outside. However, the play is quickly interrupted by a man who claims they have it all wrong. You see, he knows the real stories and they were much more fantastic than those on the stage. How does he know? Why, he’s the Baron. The Baron proceeds to the city walls to see what he can do about the war, accompanied by a young girl. This is where we learn what the movie is going to be about and where it gets its heart and soul. Much like The Miracle on 34th Street, this is a story about a child’s faith come to life. Of course, the girl doesn’t believe that this is the Baron, but the look on her face when he is hit from behind by a cannon ball and proceeds to ride it to the enemy lines, where he grabs hold of another cannon ball’s handle for the ride back, is priceless. This sort of thing is what movies are all about. The ability to make you believe implicitly, if only for two hours, that there can be a better, more fantastic world.

The Baron then takes the girl on trips to the moon, the earth’s core, and the belly of a whale in search of his long lost comrades, which is another thing I love. If you haven’t seen the movie, and most of you probably haven’t, think of Jake and Elwood putting the band back together in The Blues Brothers. I just love the idea of finding out what happened to a group of characters after they retired and then bringing them back together for a final adventure. Another example of this is His Last Bow, the short story where we finally learn what ultimately became of Sherlock Holmes (he became a bee keeper in Sussex). Of course, I had no previous connection to these characters, but part of the brilliance Gilliam’s direction and construction of the story, along with John Neville’s engaging performance as the Baron, is that you feel like you knew them right from the start, and, what’s more, that you have missed them while they were away. It’s a damn fun movie that bombed drastically at the box office, but I promise you, it is has aged very, very well.