Review of Life of Brian (1979) by Tycho D — 08 Oct 2009

"He's not the Messiah. He's a very naughty boy!".

Yet another piece of comedic brilliance by the Monty Python troupe.

"How shall we fuck off, O' Lord?".

First off, the Pythons themselves are great, wrote a wonderful screenplay (even did historical research). Chapman is just marvelous as Brian, and well, Gilliam + Cleese + Idle + Jones + Palin are great as the other various characters (from Brian's mother to Pontius Pilate). And I will always, always laugh when I see them acting as women. Specially when they are women trying to pass off as males in order to be allowed to stone people to death!

"I have a vewy gweat fwiend in Wome called 'Biggus Dickus'.".

'Life of Brian's critique is satirical and "blasphemous" to the extreme ("The film so funny, it was banned in Norway!") but it also runs very deep: it's not a mere critique of imperialism, which is a rather common and easy thing to do, but of those supposedly fighting for freedom and/or against the "tyranny of the imperialist swine". The same can be said about religion (the obvious and main theme), it's a very smart take that goes all the way down to philosophical questions regarding the nature of religious practices, of zealotry, of hypocrisy, of subjugation and even individuality.

"Yes! We're all individuals!".

Then again, I must admit I don't love this movie for its intelligent humor, I love it simply because it's hilarious! The Python's were masters of both intelligent humor and also of oddbeat silliness, and this is them doing both at their best. Certainly the superlative one among their 3 feature length films (LoB, THG and MoL).

"I say you are [The] Lord, and I should know: I've followed a few.".

Anyway, now I just want to go watch it again, and you should too. In any case, always remember to look on the bright side of life!