Criterion Blu-ray Film Review

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) • Blu-ray [Criterion Collection]

An account of Baron Munchausen’s supposed travels and fantastical experiences across late-18th-century Europe with his band of misfits.

The real Baron Munchausen was born in 1720 and fought the Turkish Ottomans for the Duke of Brunswick. Thereafter, following his retirement, Munchausen became renowned for spinning elaborate and fantastical yarns about his wartime exploits, before eventually being immortalised as a literary figure when Rudolf Erich Raspe published his fantastical 1785 novel Baron Munchausen’s Narrative of His Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia. Munchausen thus became synonymous with exaggerated lies and inspired many filmmakers who likely grew up reading Raspe’s stories…

Georges Méliès first paid tribute to the character with The Hallucinations of Baron Munchausen (1911), followed by Josef von Báky’s German production Münchhausen (1943), and finally Karel Zeman’s fantasy adventure The Fabulous Baron Munchausen (1962). It was the latter that…