What came first, the hen or the egg? It’s not like I ponder over this extremely annoying question everyday. But for me, there has always been something fascinating about beginnings. How does life evolve, how do people build up a business and how does an artist start a new painting? When it comes to film, it is always interesting to look back at a director’s first – often shaky – steps with a camera on her/his shoulders. In this feature, I will look back at a certain director’s first film every month.
Can I say something crazy? I just saw a movie that is crazier than Mad Max: Fury Road. Which I didn’t think was possible after I went out of the cinema the other day. But apparently, you just have to go back 40 years to find some more HOLY FUCK cinematic craziness. Hilarity starts with the intro credits and never stops before the cut to the last black screen. Everything in between is like nothing I’ve ever seen before.
The story is simple: King Arthur finds some knights that shall help him fulfill his task in life. Together, they embark on what IMDB appropriately calls “a low-budget search for the Holy Grail”. On their way, they must confront their darkest fears and worst weaknesses. If this sounds hilarious, wait until you see their horses.
Watching The Holy Grail for this feature reminded me of when I watched Edgar Wright’s A Fistful of Fingers a few months ago – equally low-budget and satiric, it clearly drew some inspiration from the early Monty Python films. However, Holy Grail is a much more calculated and insane movie. Its plot and execution seem so simple that you wonder why few other low-budget films have reached its level of fun. It’s the good old “of course, what a great idea, why didn’t I think of this?!” – but no one never did. Or maybe no one ever dared making a movie like this, whereas now, you’ll most likely find this sort of all-out, low-budget humor on YouTube.
You can’t miss something if you’ve never known it, they say. I for one will certainly miss the mad humor of early Monty Python from now on. We live in a century where independent film making stands better chances than ever before, yet the beautifully shot, well-written dramas and dramedies of the naughties and 2010’s just aren’t a replacement for Monty Python.
I would like to write more but there’s a dead historian and a 1970s British police officer stopping an epic battle here, so bye.
