Distortion of Reality

The narrative framework of the entire movie is centered around a distortion of reality and the creation of a world of fantasy. This is first seen during the masquerade ball, where the viewer is led to believe that it is the setting for the movie; in actuality, the scene is just an elaborate fantasy. The movie then leads into various other tales of Munchhausen, all of which are based around some exaggeration of the truth. The narrative framework is designed to give the audience the feeling that everything would be okay in the end, regardless of the good or bad events that took place throughout the movie. This clearly has a direct correlation to the events going on in Germany at the time of the movie's release (1943), when it was clear that momentum was shifting away from Germany and that defeat was a possibility, if not likely. Germany, like Munchhausen, could stay alive as long as it wanted to and would know the proper time to bow out once it was done pursuing new adventures. In a sense, this framework gave the German people the feeling that Germany wasn't defeated, but that it knew when enough was enough. Therefore, the power was in the hands of the German army and the German people. In all, "Munchhausen" provided a sense of both escapism and mastery at a time when the reality was anything but that.