I can happily report that it is still a very silly movie. After having viewed Apocalypse Now a week ago in stony silence at the Somerville Theatre, watching Monty Python's finest work was a welcome antidote.
My first memory of watching Holy Grail was while I was in high school. I'm not sure if it was on VHS or happened to be on TV, what I do remember that not only I found it funny, but Mom was in absolute hysterics. I have watched it many times since including on the big screen probably around 20 years ago at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline. I also get joy from seeing YouTube reactors view it for the very first time. But there's nothing like sharing the experience inside a full theatre.
There are so many silly things from which to find joy. The opening credits with the mock Swedish subtitles and the repeated sacking of those responsible for those subtitles, the banging of coconuts to represent horses, the air speed velocity of European and African swallows, peasants who belong to an anarcho-syndicalist commune, the loony Black Knight being comically dismembered, being taunted by the French, the Knights Who Say Ni, Tim the Enchanter, the three questions to gain access to the Bridge of Death and, of course, killer rabbits. England in 932 A.D. was a very silly place indeed.
I can take comfort that the creative genius of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam will live on for 50 more years and possibly centuries.
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