“All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us”?

Monty Python’s Life of Brian tells the story of Brian Cohen, a young Jewish man who keeps being mistaken for Jesus Christ. Released in 1979, the film is a religious satire that still today pushes comedy to the limit. Highly controversial and blasphemous of every point Christianity has ever made, the Life of Brian breaks all the rules, and does so with intelligence and humour.

Drawing a number of accusations in the UK, and being banned in most places around the world, including Ireland and Norway, the film took a while to reach the broad audience it deserved. When it finally did, however, it instantly became a huge box office success in both the UK and the United States. It was named the greatest comedy of all time by most movie critics and television networks, and it made Monty Python the most successful comedy group to have ever existed.

However, with the risk of disappointing whoever thinks that all these bans point towards an insulting movie, and a guilty pleasure kind of film, Life of Brian does not mock Jesus, God, or anyone that truly believes in their teachings. It rather makes fun of this poor guy named Brian, who had the ugliest mother in the world, the biggest nose, and was constantly accused of not being able to think about anything else but sex. Qualities that shouldn’t lead anyone to mistake him for the Messiah, but somehow, everyone did. Why? Because he was born on the same day as Jesus. And in the stable next door. Because there were “signs” pointing towards this belief. Because he was in the wrong/right place, at the wrong/right time. In any case, what the film mocks is not religion. It is religious obsession. And it is not Jesus Christ. Rather, it is everyone around him that the film makes fun of, all those fanatics that were crucifying each other and repeatedly showcasing their lack of sanity.

Graham Chapman is great as both Brian –aka Messiah/naughty boy– and Biggus Dickus. His constant resignation clashes hilariously with the sick enthusiasm of every other character in the film, resulting to a carefully organized, while at the same time absurd balance. John Cleese is, for the most part, Reg. Nothing more needs to be said. His flawless comical timing doesn’t allow any kind of analysis, or that would actually be blasphemous and would result in this review being banned. Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin are actually too funny to describe. This is the kind of comical acting that one needs to see to believe.

The film is directed by Terry Jones and financed/produced by Beatle George Harrison. It was entirely shot in Tunisia, reusing Franco Zeffirelli’s sets for Jesus of Nazareth, which was released two years earlier, in 1977. Locals were hired as extras on the movie, but funnily enough they had started acquiring quite the religious acting knowledge, since most of them had worked for Zeffirelli as well. According to Terry Jones, they would approach him and correct him at times, pointing out that this or that would never happen in Jesus of Nazareth.

Small insanities, all neatly put together, in order to build a massive pile of unsolvable chaos, is what makes Monty Python so brilliant. And this comedy method definitely works in Life of Brian. It’s the film that mocks madness, using even more madness, which proves to be the best way to do it.

“There shall in that time be rumours of things going astray, erm, and there shall be a great confusion as to where things really are, and nobody will really know where lieth those little things with the sort of raffia-work base, that has an attachment. At that time, a friend shall lose his friend’s hammer, and the young shall not know where lieth the things possessed by their fathers that their fathers put there only just the night before, about eight o’clock”…





External links:

Life of Brian at IMDb

Life of Brian at Wikipedia

The Monty Python at Wikipedia

Memorable quotes from Life of Brian at IMDb

Life of Brian named best comedy at bbc.co.uk

What did ‘Life of Brian’ ever do for us? at telegraph.co.uk

