Originally released in 1975 Monty Python and The Holy Grail was my first introduction to the marvellous anarchy of the British comedy team. I walked in as a precious border just as King Arthur was hacking the Black Knight to pieces. Almost 25 years later I can still frame in my mind my open mouthed amazement at this marvellous insanity. Once my brain made the leap in logic required to "get" that style of humour I was hooked for life.
This however is an attempt at a review, and an objective one. Objectively the film is a mediocre film but a great COMEDY.
What makes the film great is not just the wit of the Python boys such as the undoubtedly Terry Jones inspired skit with the peasants in mud yammering away about being an "an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week,..." A skit that combines not just an awareness of the grimness of peasant life in the Dark Ages but also the wacky verbosity typical of some of the finest Python sketches.
Yet the film is more that just a collection of skits and typical Python insanity, with this film the Pythons offer a cheeky "Homage" to cinema itself. This is seen throughout the film with the warm hearted mocking of Errol Flynn in Robin Hood, referenced by Cleese hanging motionless from a rope in the castle courtyard. Or just before that scene we see Cleese as Lancelot running to the castle in a long shot, yet failing to make any ground. A reference, at least for myself, to the wonderful idle long takes one finds in the Lean classic Lawrence of Arabia. Or the faux gravitas of the very official sounding "The Book of the Film", or indeed the meta narrative of the cackling old man from scene 3.
This film saw the boys liberated from the confines of the television medium and as such engaging whole-heartedly in the delights of the form and also in its history. No budget to get horses? Fine we turn that to a positive, lets use coconuts and turn that negative to a postive. No budget for armour? Fine lets use wool and paint it, but no matter how difficult the financial situation lets press on.
In fact the filming of this film was a huge burden for all involved financial backers were scare and Grahams alcoholism was at its full blown worst, with poor Terry Jones and Gilliam desperately trying to bully the ship back on course.
Yet somehow they did, and the testament they left behind is one of the great out right comedy films in the English language.
Labels: monty python holy grail film review lean lawrence arabia Jones Cleese gilliam graham comedy Errol Flynn Lean Lawrence
