collected writings

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

Director Terry Gilliam has an outstand reputation for making brilliant, far-flung epics populated with hundreds of colorful characters... although more specifically he has a reputation for sometimes achieving this vision and sometimes burning a lot of money.

Witness the 2002 documentary "Lost in La Mancha" on Gilliam's attempt to bring Don Quixote to the screen. The doc chronicles everything that could possibly go wrong on a film production. Terry Gilliam acts as a lightning rod for Murphy's Law.

Which is why, when Gilliam manages to complete a film, in this case, "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen," the effect is tremendous.

"Baron" was not without its troubles. During production in the late 1980's it quickly became the largest European production since "Cleopatra," the "Titanic" or "Water World" of their days. The film went dramatically over budget, shut down multiple times over nearly a half billion dollars worth of lawsuits, its extensive cast was cut by the thousands, and near the end the entire crew succumbed to exhaustion.

But what a movie.

Beginning with Terry Gilliam's involvement with Monty Python in the sixties and seventies, his work has taken him elsewhere, as evident in his cartoon creations for Python. They are bizarre if anything; Dali paintings running mad down a cobblestone street.

Gilliam wrote, acted, and directed with the other Python's in their early work, but took an increasingly active director role throughout. In "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life," which Gilliam co-directed with Terry Jones, he also directed the short that precedes the film. It is, stylistically, his cartoons come to life, sharing the same surrealism, color pallet and wild, hodge-podge beauty.

"Baron Munchausen" represents this vision at its apex. The story exists virtually everywhere; brushing off dust on the moon, playing cards in the belly of a great sea-beast, dancing with Vulcan in a volcano, and reenacting Arabian myths with the sultan.

What do all these have to do with each other? Not much. Some stories examine philosophy, some offer satirical critiques of war, but the only thing that holds the film together is the same thing that plagues Gilliam's productions: overwhelming madness.

"Baron Munchausen" is a salute to madness, an homage to madness Monty Python style, from the mad Terry Gilliam. Likewise, "The Meaning of Life" is just plain silly, and contains some of the funniest scenes every captured to celluloid (and is also a bit naughty.)

"Meaning of Life" doesn't reach for the critical heights that "Life of Brian" does, and the story (what story?) doesn't shine like "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," but the film is pure Python, and very funny.

As with any Python sketches, and certainly in "The Meaning of Life," there are some bits of adult humor, but it's all part of the show. Anyone who has seen the restaurant vomit scene knows that Python gross-out slapstick body humor has been copied for the last thirty years, and yet the original is still the funniest.

A dying actor (Brodsky) playing an actor (Fanda) trying not to die makes a seemingly light movie become infinitely more complex. "Autumn Spring" is to be seen by all those who fear death, those who wait for death, and those content to simply live life.