They don’t make comedies like this anymore.

 

Over the past few years and maybe even decades, the comedy genre has seemed to be in a rut in which it just can’t seem to get out of. I mean, there have been a few great comedy films that have now grown into cult status, for example, Napoleon Dynamite and Anchorman just to name two, but in my own opinion, I don’t believe that any have them have even gone into the level of comedy genius compared to Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The film just oozes the appeal of a comedy great, from Graham Chapman’s portrayal of King Arthur of Britons to the dread Knights of Ni, it just seems as if, this film could be seen as the perfect comedy film.

The basic plot of the film is King Arthur, who is portrayed by Graham Chapman, trying to gather his knights of the roundtable in order to complete God’s quest of finding the Holy Grail, but it doesn’t seem to go as easy as that with many trials and tribulations for each of Arthur’s Knights of the Roundtable which includes Sir Lancelot (John Cleese) and Sir Robin the Not-Quite-So-Brave-as-Sir Lancelot (Eric Idle). In my opinion, The Holy Grail should be considered as one of the greatest comedies to come out of Britain, with satirical look of what it may have been like in early centuries England. I think what was good about this film is that the comedy is not shown to be intelligent but is just a surreal comedy which doesn’t actually make sense but the audience doesn’t really understand, this is shown with one of my personal favourite parts of the film with each character not having a horse but a servant who clicks two coconuts together to signify the sounds of horse shows. I believe I rate Monty Python and the Holy Grail so highly is the simplicity of the whole production and its eclectic and parodist nature, for example, with the idea of having a whole part of the story continue with just a song and dance, showing a parody of many musical films of having the whole plot device of singing to carry the narrative.

Even though I am a self-confused Python fan, I do have a few negative points about the film as a whole, with the nature of the film shown to be quite lacklustre with the idea that it is not the usual Python comedy from the original Flying Circus series. Also, the idea of having a periodic story telling through a book does go with the whole ethos of the story, however, I believe this was just to show off the witticisms of each of the pythons. But this use of juxtaposing each characters journey with zany one liners and the whole beginning credits with what looks like Swedish instantly catapults the film into cult classic status, with the idea of the different story lines may have influenced some of the more intelligent films of today like Memento with its impossible storyline.

I suppose, the film just shows the importance of the whole Python era in the 60s and 70s and how influential they have been, even the very mention of the ‘rabbit scene’ from this film will get any regular comedy and Python fan into hysterical laughter just thinking about it, but alas, the film industry is not as it once was by recycling the norm within Hollywood like Adam Sandler and friends making even more hand banging-ly bad Grown Up films where the characters are actually laughing at their own jokes. On the other hand, with Holy Grail, it creates, what Baudrillard would call, ‘hyperreailty’ where it doesn’t actually follow the real story of King Arthur as they decide not to go to Camelot because ‘it is a silly place’. It just shows the comedic genius of each of the Pythons as they can create their own branch of comedy films and can keep even more generations laughing 40 years on. For me to be able to rate this film in just five stars would be an understatement to the Python’s genius, but it’s at least five out of five. You don’t have to take my advice but just go by what the creators said themselves, ‘You can do worse than see it’.