the Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988).

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 “Terry Gilliam and Stanley Kubrick are geniuses… now whether for the safety of others artistic geniuses should be allowed helm major motion pictures is another thing entirely!” - Eric Idle   


Very often (multiple times a year) I feel this is my favorite movie. It is based on the book that invented the tall tale. Also,  seemingly this movie influenced ff4 and final fantasy in general.  It also ended Terry Gilliam’s career as major budget filmmaker.


Having talked twice about Terry Gilliam in a couple of weeks I feel obligated to mention I disagree with him on several things and they are things I personally feel strongly about.  I believe in trans rights though I also think Terry is from a different generation and while I disagree with him, I still watch his movies and think he has a right to be wrong as much as anyone. As I potentially could be wrong for still enjoying his movies, or someone else could be wrong for thinking the movies shouldn’t exist.


What is the adventures of baron munchasun? It is a coin trick so elaborate you can’t know what terms of your wager were.


It is about the dangerous and flawed nature of charisma and how we don’t have a clue about how we relate to truth.


The baron is a womanizing old man. Flirts with everyone’s wife and often kisses them (looking at you Uma Thurman). Escapes from sea monsters with a hand full of snuff.  Opens the gates of our minds to the potential that our enemies are the very lies we create.


Robin Williams is lovingly and dastardly twisted as the king of the moon. One of his greatest performances. Eric idle is another standout in the film. As is sally who said the amount of explosive and special effects traumatized her during the making of the film.


[spoiler ahead!] at the end of the film I feel what we experience as an audience is a inversion of Terry Gilliam other masterpiece Brazil.  Though instead watching a tortured man hurt untill his only escape is his delusions… instead we witness our own wish fulfillment on screen and collapse into fantasy without death and only joy at a piece of working magic on celluloid. Mostly unaware of the daily indignities if only for a few moments. 


In many ways the adventures of the baron are once upon a time in Hollywood with a wider scope including the power of storytelling itself as the very canvas of anecdotal power to overcome the injustice of it all and even if only temporarily the banal. 


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