“Truth isn’t truth!” – Rudy Giuliani
“You’re fake news!” – Donald Trump
“Our press secretary, Sean Spicer, gave alternative facts…” – Kellyanne Conway
I don’t wish to link every single movie I review to current events, but I was curious coming into Karel Zeman’s The Fabulous Baron Munchausen (Baron Prášil) to see how it would play in our post-truth world. Here is a beloved literary and cinematic character whose tall stories have enchanted people for over two centuries. But let’s face it, he’s a bullshitter, brazenly embellishing tales of his own amazing feats while deriding his rival as a fantasist – would Munchausen seem so charming in a world where Donald Trump constantly does the same thing, albeit with much less elan? Nowadays our social media feeds are bombarded with stories of people who, not liking the facts, make up their own and then vociferously rage at their opponents as liars. Against this backdrop, can we listen to any more bullshit on our free time?
Thankfully yes, but I’ll come to that later.
Buy The Fabulous Baron Munchausen from Amazon HERE
Zeman starts by bringing the Munchausen tale right up to date with a moon landing, and astronaut Tony (Rudolf Jelínek) discovers that he’s not the first to arrive – footprints lead to an old gramophone and a bullet-shaped capsule straight out of Jules Verne’s From Earth to the Moon. He’s greeted by some gentlemen in 18th century clobber who don’t seem phased by lack of oxygen, along with Cyrano de Bergerac and Baron Munchausen. They mistake Tony for an inhabitant of the moon, and the Baron decides to take him to earth to show him how things are done down there. Travelling in a galleon drawn by flying horses, they splash down in 18th century Constantinople, where their fanciful journey begins…
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