Have you seen?: Monty Python's Life of Brian

I can’t remember how young I was when I first watched my video of Life of Brian (1979). Maybe I was nine. Or was it ten? It was around the time they were still making new episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, DVDs were geeky collector’s items, and Pokemon still roamed the earth. Maybe I was eleven. No, wait . . . definitely ten. I remember watching the ‘juniper bushes’ scene in my bedroom, before the double-glazing was fitted. After landing on top of a naked hermit and causing him to yelp in pain, thus breaking his 20-year vow of silence, Brian suggests that his hungry followers eat from a nearby juniper bush. The hermit, still completely naked, takes exception to this crowd of strangers partaking of his single food-source, jumps out of his hole and comically attacks them. I was rolling with laughter. ...Yep, definitely ten.

Monty Python’s Life of Brian chronicles, not surprisingly, the life (and death) of Brian, who was born in the next stable-over from Jesus of Nazareth. Brian’s life happens to weirdly parallel Christ’s, but for all the wrong reasons. He’s against the Roman occupation of Judea, not on principled grounds of peace and brotherly love, but because he has a crush on a girl from a Jewish resistance group. He’s worshipped as the Messiah, not because of miracles and inspirational sermons, but because his would-be followers are too weak-minded to realize that he really is making it all up as he goes along. And he’s crucified, not because of a deliberate act of betrayal, but because those in a position to save him are either incompetent or incredibly self-involved.

Along the way he receives instruction on Latin spelling and grammar at knife-point, gets (very briefly) abducted by aliens and witnesses a space battle, learns how to haggle over fake beards, and is arrested to answer for his subversion in front of a Roman Governor with a vewy stwong speech-impediment. Comedic genius, obviously – though, perhaps owing to my tender years, I missed a lot of the satire. How, for example, did I miss the explicit piss-taking of the Leftist movements of the 1960s and ‘70s, nicely summed up in the absurdly bureaucratic People’s Front of Judea, who are more concerned with being politically correct and feuding with rival organisations (the Judean People’s Front) than advancing their cause? Or that the only Christian in the film charitably comes to the aid of a condemned prisoner, who promptly does a runner and leaves our good Samaritan to take his place on the cross?

But this is not, as you may have guessed, really about religion or morality. This is one of the greatest works of the group which brought you the ‘Dead Parrot’ and ‘Ministry of Silly Walks’ sketches. (The reason why my younger self was rolling with laughter, by the way, was because it’s pretty damn funny.) However, on its initial release not everyone found it pretty damn funny. In some districts it was banned as subversive and immoral (spot the irony) and when first released in New York attracted protests from Baptists, Methodists, Roman Catholics, and Jewish sects. “The first time all those groups had been brought together,” Eric Idle proudly noted. Indeed, the film was viewed as too risky by the major studios, and probably wouldn’t have been made were it not for the financial backing of George Harrison (who has a cameo in the film as “the gentleman who’s lending us the mount on Sunday”). God bless that Beatle – he knew quality when he saw it.

So if you haven’t seen Life of Brian, then I really have to ask: what have you been doing with your life? Were you raised in a nunnery? Have you, like Plato’s Guardians, been living in an underground cave, learning the secret truths of the universe via shadow-puppets, only to emerge and find that those you would rule don’t want to be governed by a comedic Luddite such as yourself? If the answer is ‘yes’ then you need to see this film – if only to fulfil your metaphysical destiny. If you’ve already seen it, then may I suggest that you get your dusty old VHS tape (remember rewinding? Such a hassle) or shiny DVD out and watch it again this Easter. You’ll have fun reminiscing, and please . . . always remember to look on the bright side of life. That is, after all, what Jesus would want.

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