I’d like to get inside Karel Zeman’s head and look around for a while. There are few filmmakers whose relatively obscurity outside of more devoted artistic circles bewilder me quite as much as him – throughout his career, Zeman produced some of the most fascinating works of art ever committed to film, quite literally buildings worlds on which to tell his stories. One of his most significant works is The Fabulous Baron Munchausen (Czech: Baron Prášil), a daring odyssey that sees the director doing what he does so tremendously well, merging style and substance in a way that is beyond unprecedented. There’s an active need for us to culturally reevaluate Zeman and see how his influence has spread further than that of most filmmakers – everyone from Terry Gilliam to Wes Anderson, David Lynch to the founding fathers of Pixar, have been in some way inspired by his work, with The Fabulous Baron Munchausen being amongst his better-known masterpieces. This is an essential film – not only for those of us who yearn for something radically different from time to time (since very few films can attest to being in any way comparable to this, especially at the time in which it was produced), but also for those looking to find examples of alternative filmmaking in practice – not only is The Fabulous Baron Munchausen one of the most stunning films of the 1960s, it is also a wildly-original work of art, a piece that transcends any known classification and instead occupies a category all on its own. The sooner we realize the brilliance of Zeman, and acknowledge his status as one of the most profoundly interesting filmmakers to be working at the time, the better we can rest knowing that recognition has been brought to a truly unique voice in twentieth-century cinema.

Throughout The Fabulous Baron Munchausen, Zeman is taking his cue from many different sources, with his main point of reference being the literary journeys of Jules Verne (whose work he had previously been inspired by in prior works), but he doesn’t limit himself to this line of storytelling, instead taking a far more experimental approach. Throughout the film, the director is employing a multimodal approach to the narrative, blending numerous genres together to give the film its distinct tone – The Fabulous Baron Munchausen has elements of swashbuckling adventure, insightful and progressive science fiction, hilarious slapstick comedy and soaring romance, all of which are woven into the story in a way that may be somewhat jarring at first, but quickly becomes one of the most distinctive merits of the film as a whole, and as we become acclimated to the world Zeman is presenting us with, we start to realize the true genius embedded in the story. Truthfully, there isn’t much in terms of a plot to this film – it focuses on the exploits of a young space traveller who becomes associated with the Baron – who has often been associated with the character of Baron Munchausen, the famous creation by Rudolf Erich Raspe, who has been the subject of innumerable works that centre on his adventures, but who exists here only by name, being far more insidious and meddlesome than other iterations of the character – and venture with him across the world (as well as above it and below it) while they both attempt to charm the beguiling princess and win her adoration. What follows is a simple but effective adventure narrative that may not be revolutionary in terms of the storyline, but rather functions as a reliably thrilling piece of entertainment that gives us exactly what we’re seeking from a film such as this, delivering everything we need in terms of a compelling story.

Zeman’s approach to this material on a narrative level may not be as strong as one would expect – but its almost certain that very few viewers, if any, are focused on the narrative. What The Fabulous Baron Munchausen lacks in coherency it compensates for in visual panache. Everything about Zeman’s career has been built around his style, with his technique of coupling live-action footage with gorgeous animation creating an experience like no other. Perhaps twee and more amusing than impactful by modern standards (where worlds can be created from behind a keyboard), the brilliance of The Fabulous Baron Munchausen cannot be underestimated in any way, with the director producing one of the most inventive works of the 1960s. The striking beauty of this film envelopes you the moment you step foot into Zeman’s world – the unique style of animation, the colour palette and the general compositions are stunningly gorgeous, but carry a depth to them that feels far more authentic than a lot of mainstream fare produced today. Every frame of The Fabulous Baron Munchausen is a work of art – the meticulous detail that went into it emanates frequently, with the general atmosphere of this film entirely being the result of the beautifully unique manner in which the director brings life to this story. It doesn’t matter that the story in between these stunning moments isn’t all that memorable (although we should give credit to the film as a while, since it is a relatively charming adventure comedy in its own right, with some wonderful moments scattered throughout), because it makes up for these slight flaws with a gorgeous set of images that leave the audience in a state of complete awe – that’s where the brilliance of The Fabulous Baron Munchausen resides, and it almost entirely worth seeing just for seeing how Zeman tests the boundaries of the cinematic form.

Zeman was a filmmaker very much driven by his curiosity, which he channelled into his work, creating pieces of unhinged artistry that are brimming with energy and frequently shatter the confines of the genres from which they were built. The Fabulous Baron Munchausen may be seen as just an expedition in amusing visual meanderings, but if we look beyond the beautiful style and actually acknowledge what it all represents – produced during a time in which animation was still very much the realm of more experimental fare for anyone not working for the Walt Disney Company, there’s a renegade brilliance in this film that supersedes nearly everything else about it, and allows it to flourish into one of the most daring pieces of filmmaking to come from the 1960s. The story is fun, the filmmaking is incredible and all the peripheral factors – the music, the tone and the themes explored – all converge into an entertaining, deeply compelling film that is quite simply unlike anything else you’re likely to see. We should start praising Karel Zeman more often, since his work was entertaining, charming and unbelievably gorgeous, and there is nothing quite as satisfying as being immersed in his strange but beautiful world, which is all the more reason to proclaim The Fabulous Baron Munchausen as one of the most charming minor masterpieces of the period, and one that should be seen and adored by contemporary viewers, who I have no doubt will be just as bewitched by this film today as audiences were decades ago.