The Life of Brian

I recently “acquired” a copy of the movie “Monty Python’s Life of Brian.” Oddly enough, I had never heard about this movie until we discussed in my English class, even though I am pretty familiar with other Monty Python movies such as “The Meaning of Life” and of course, “The Holy Grail.”   Although I had enjoyed both of these movies, I don’t think I enjoy them half as much as many other people do who almost seem to worship them.  Because of this, I had mixed feelings going in to this movie.  However, I needed another cultural event for my English class, so it couldn’t be a complete loss…right?

The movie, “Monty Python’s Life of Brian,” is a satirical comedy that pokes fun at religion, as well as how the masses seems to follow it blindly.  Brian Cohen, the main character in this film, is born a few houses down from Jesus Christ and this the first of many jokes aimed at Christianity and religion in general.  Brian is able to get an inside look of religion through his travels, this causes him to see many of the things that are wrong with modern day religion.   This includes internal conflict, such as the fighting between sects and factions inside the church.  At one point, Brian is confused as a messiah because he is just mumbling religious babble in order to get away from Roman guards, but this babbling attracts a crowd that mistakes him for the messiah.  Then Brian tries to convince this large crowd that he is not in fact the messiah, and they should not worship him, which proves to be rather difficult.  I think this is making fun of how blindly  people will follow religion when they are in masses doing so.  The movie ends when Brian is eventually captured, and sentenced to death by crucifixion, much like Jesus Christ.  I didn’t really find the end very amusing, I think the joke of everyone breaking into song might have gone over my head.

Besides the ending, I found the majority of the movie very entertaining.  I think it helped a lot that I am currently reading Salman Rushdie’s “East, West.”  Salman Rushdie uses a lot of satire in his writing, and it’s the eye for satire that I picked up whilst reading that helped me notice certain things in “Monty Python’s Life of Brian.”  Although the religion of Christianity seems to be the focus of the movie, I think that the aim of this movie is to make fun of all organized religion, which I think it does a good job of.  I do not believe myself to be a religious person, however I could understand that some religious people may be offended by certain parts of this movie if they are taken the wrong way.  Although I am not a huge fan of typical British humor, I found this movie to be overall enjoyable, and much better then most movies that I get to watch for school  I think that is important that we are able to laugh at ourselves and our society as a whole.