The latest work of the famous circus of flying pythons, as well as their third feature film – Monty Python’s Meaning of Life. This is an absurdist comedy in which not only no one really gets to the bottom of the meaning of human existence, but in general, at first glance, does not put any sense into the script. And so we must interpret the meaning of what seems to have no meaning. But is it true? In fact, there
The meaning of the film “The Meaning of Life According to Monty Python”
The plot of the film, judging by the title, is dedicated to the search for the meaning of human existence, we are promised to explain everything or, at least, to put the question squarely. And then for almost two hours we will watch how the authors of the picture ingeniously leave both the answer to all the questions asked and the plot as such. It feels like we are being openly mocked.
If the previous films of the British “circus” still had a coherent plot, then here we see just a collection of sketches. But it all starts with a 16-minute piece directed by Terry Gilliam – “Scarlet Sails”. In it, a group of elderly accountants, driven into a corner by effective managers, suddenly raises a riot, boards the office and, turning it into a pirate ship, sets off on a great global voyage.
Only after that does it start talking about a certain meaning … The clearest metaphor for the absurdity and meaninglessness of human existence is an aquarium with human-headed fish. A person is used to thinking too much about himself, but he is not smarter or more important than fresh fish, which will be fried for dinner at a local restaurant. The guys from Monty Python immediately take their favorite note – boundless cynicism, real British humor, for which there are no taboo topics, nothing is sacred and inviolable. These are punks in comedian masks.
The famous episode with Mr. Creosote in the restaurant depicts the human passion for the simplest pleasures – gluttony. It is staged so realistically, in the spirit of the new Rabelaisianism, that you can really throw up. Don’t watch this sketch at dinner. The authors are just as cynical in the episode “Birth”. This is where you need to be reverent. Don’t wait! Actors pour the most frostbitten jokes on this blissful topic.
Approximately about the same, as well as about the stupid hostility of different religious movements, the episode about “sacred sperm”. It equally wittily ridicules both Catholics, with their fear of a waste of seed, and stiff Protestants. The famous song “All sperm is sacred, all sperm is priceless”, which is sung by 70 impoverished children of a virtuous but completely insolvent Catholic, is from here, from this fragment.
In sketches about growing up and studying, everything is turned upside down. Here the teacher teaches the children not the basics of virtue, but the basics and direct practice of sex. Another teacher is invited to the classroom as a visual aid. And when it comes to maturity, we are boldly shown the absurdity of war. Either the soldiers interrupt the attack to give the commander birthday gifts, or they talk directly to the camera that the colonial war in India is a glorious entertainment, because you can rob and release your guts, and in England they would have been put in jail for this.
Perfect trash – an episode with a liver donor. In front of our eyes, a liver is cut out from a living person in the same everyday way as, for example, repairing a sewer or repairing electrical wiring. A sea of blood and laughter, in the end. Each episode tells us that life is meaningless. We seem to be getting further and further from the promised clarification. But we were hoping for it.
The ending is completely depressing. The heroes of the plot end up in paradise, which most of all resembles the most vulgar American music hall, where bare-breasted angels dance, and wise men roll gifts for the baby Jesus in supermarket carts. And is this happiness? And for this we tried at least sometimes to be virtuous?
The meaning of the finale of the film “The Meaning of Life According to Monty Python”
At the very end, we see a lady sitting in an armchair, who takes a shining tablet from the hands of an assistant and begins to read out the meaning of life supposedly written on it. The words are literally as follows: try not to eat fatty foods, read good books, treat people well. The classic, albeit simplified, meaning of religious commandments, if translated into modern language. Indeed, everything that religion tells us seems to modern man such a dull banality. So, the “pythons” knock out a saving bench from under our feet, there is no higher, sacred meaning, no mystery, revelation. But what remains? What remains is atheistic stoicism. All the inventions of the priests, with which humanity consoled itself in the horror of its own death, are completely swept aside. The only meaning is courage, truthfulness and, of course, humor as such. Only he can smooth out the absurdity of human existence and give it at least some meaning.
