THE LIFE OF BRIAN 1979
A film review by Timothy Voon
Copyright 1997 Timothy Voon
Cast: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Micahel Palin, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones. Director: Terry Jones Written: By the cast.
At first there was 'The Life of Christ'. Who can forget 'The Sermon on the Mount', 'The Feeding of the Five Thousand', and 'The Last Temptation of Christ'. Ooops, did I say that? Must have misplaced a page out of Scorsese's books. Then there is the 'Life of Brian'. Who can forget the 'Gourd of Life', the 'Missing Slipper' and the 'Miracle of the Berry Tree.'
"Brian child prodigy, the creation of mistaken identity, who had the misfortune of being born on Christmas day, to forever be compared to the greater man. His gifts of Myrrh, Gold and Frankincense snatched away at birth by three wise men. Not as stupid as haggard looked. His mother in great need of shave, with voice so deep a frog prince one could almost mistake her be. Grew up in town of Bethlehem, nay carpenter or humble slave, but rising member of 'Judean People's Front'. To see the Pharisee of Cleese organise let's stone 'Jehovah' speech, to watch women with camel beards, pick up rocks in furious vent their anger be on that stupid Pharisee. Next of note, on Graffiti paint. The walls of Jerusalem, not 'All Hail Mary' or 'Hail King David', but one hundred times from dusk till dawn, poor Brian slaves with picture words to pen 'Hail Caesar' not in one, but three Hebraic, Greek and Aramaic. Thus his life goes on to forever be, remembered as Christ's prodigy. Where 'Bigus Dickus' brings laughs bigger than 'Fall of Rome'; to mercies feet, Brian's fate rests on Pontius Pilate's mouthy lisps with 'evewy Wobert, Wichard and Bwian'. To end up crossed not with nail to hand, but rope to arm and platformed feet. To die for cause J.P.F., P.L.O., and I.R.A. His dying words nay 'Father forgive them for they know not what they do.', but hey 'Always look on the bright side of life.'" From 'The Chronicles of Monty Python Snippets' by TMT Voon.
Technically speaking how can one criticise 'Monty Python' when in truth they are a mockery of themselves. One cannot take the talents of Cleese, Idle, Palin and the others and expect Shakespeare, Keats, or Wordsworth. Confusing in many parts i.e. the kidnapping of Brian by a space craft, the use of the same actors to play multiple characters. This irreverent comedy pastes together not a script or a plot, but various stand up situations of issues relating to the Christian faith. Most notably 'Blind Faith', and the unquestioned acceptance of miracles. However, the definition of faith is one which does not have it's roots imbedded in explanation or logic, so in truth faith is blind. As with every Monty Python movie, the sets, the costumes, the entire film is always secondary to the jokes and the actors. So what we have is a lot of adolescent school boys having plenty of fun playing with themselves in Jerusalem.
Feel scale: 0% The Last Temptation of Christ /*THE LIFE OF BRIAN* / The Gospel of John 100%
Timothy Voon e-mail: stirling@netlink.com.au
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews