British comedy group continues to make audiences laugh
Monty Python was a comedy troupe from England that burst into the comedy world in 1969 with their transgressive and outrageous television series “Monty Python’s Flying Circus.” The group consisted of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin, and one Yank, Terry Gilliam. They wrote their own material and played most of the roles, including the women. They only made four theatrical films: “And Now For Something Completely Different” (1971), “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” (1975), “Life of Brian” (1979), and “The Meaning of Life” (1983). “Life of Brian” has the most narrative and plot of the four. The other three are basically sketches strung together. “The Meaning of Life” does not sustain the same level of zany brilliance as “Holy Grail,” but it reaches that level in many of its best vignettes, making them some of the best scenes of their career.
The film begins with a live-action short directed by Gilliam, who at the time of the film’s production had a solo directing career with films such as “Jabberwocky” and “Time Bandits.”In the short “The Crimson Permanent Assurance,” elderly office workers take over their office à la pirates and make their building sail off like a boat.
Then the feature presentation starts with the troupe playing fish in a tank in a restaurant that will show up later in the film. After a brief philosophical discussion about the meaning of life, Eric Idle sings the title song of the film over Gilliam’s animated opening credits. The rest of the film goes through the different stages of life from birth to death.
One of the funniest and most inspired scenes in the film is in the “Autumn Years” when Mr. Creosote, a cartoonish obese man in a tuxedo, walks into an elegant restaurant, the one with the fish from the opening, and proceeds to projectile vomit all over the place. The reason the scene works so well is because the French waiter, played by Cleese, casually requests a cleaning woman and a bucket and does everything to accommodate the glutton. In another nauseatingly hilarious scene, a man forcibly has his liver removed while he is still alive because he has a liver donors card. Monty Python always had violent and sick humor in their work.
The film is also a musical with seven songs. The most audacious one features a Roman Catholic family with more than fifty children singing “Every Sperm Is Sacred,” an elaborate production number reminiscent of “Oliver!”. The liver donor scene ends with the lovely “Galaxy Song,” a ditty about how small and insignificant people are when compared to the whole universe.
With all the laughs and lunacy, one might not realize how well-directed the film is. Terry Jones directed the main film, and he appropriately shoots the different chapters with the tone and atmosphere the scene calls for. When Death arrives at a dinner party in the countryside, the tall, ragged Grim Reaper is actually quite frightening and ominous. Timing is essential in comedy, and the rhythm of the scenes and the delivery of the dialogue is perfectly executed by the expert comedians.
“The Meaning of Life” is a wild, sometimes surreal comedy for audiences that have strong stomachs, are not easily offended and do not mind musicals. It is easily one of the funniest comedies of the 1980s.