Monty Python & the Holy Grail: CE

"It's only a model."

Every once in a while, a motion picture comes along that takes the audience to a place they’ve never been before - a place of magic, of mystery. A place where the heart is torn between the beauty of the forest and the soft whispering allure of the desert. In this vast expanse of epic romantic vision and lost love regained, nothing is ever as it seems. Unless it actually is as it seems, in which case things can sometimes be as they seem, but usually aren’t. Into this land comes Nimrod the Vertical Elf and his dear childhood friend Bloggog (half man, half horse, half failed mathematician), who set out on a journey that will take them to the very heart of evil itself. And in so doing, they discover the truth about each other. Nimrod sees for the first time that, truly, he is truly a man amongst elves. And Bloggog, for so long cast aside in the great debates around the campfire back home in the bumpy town of Sequelitus, finally discovers his porn name. And so Hibiscus Fido is born - and born into a land of kings, to be king for all eternity, including the times where he doesn’t want to be king but is betrayed by the tiara on his equestrian head. But now, a great evil is stalking the land, and...

DVDnet apologises for the opening paragraph of this review. It was written by a very silly person. A new writer has now been assigned to this review.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was a foggy day in London, and the fog was heavy and dark. “Take another glass of wine,� he said, “and excuse my mentioning that society as a body does not expect one to be so strictly conscientious in emptying one's glass, as to turn it bottom upwards with the rim on one's nose!� There was a frosty rime upon the trees. “If you could see my legs when I take my boots off,� returned Mrs Chick, “you'd form some idea of what unrequited affection is."

DVDnet would like to apologise for the new opening paragraph above. Mr Charles Dickens is now no longer on the reviewing staff at DVDnet. His review of Monty Python and the Holy Grail will now be written by Anthony Horan. DVDnet would also like to apologise for this shameless rip-off of the opening credits gag from the film. Thank you.

"Get on with it!!!"

What is there to say about Monty Python and the Holy Grail that hasn’t already been said a hundred times? Now nearly 30 years old, it’s become the benchmark in comedy for so many people that have spent their lives with its unrepentant silliness that grown adults can be heard quoting bits of it to each other, much to the bemusement of the uninitiated. Try it. Next time you’re catching a train, let fly with a nice loud “NI!� in the middle of the trip. It’s almost guaranteed that someone in the assembled crowd will respond in kind. It’s also an absolute certainty that you’ll get the living crap beaten out of you for being one of those annoying nerds who walks around quoting Holy Grail all the time. But no great science comes without a little pain.

However, we digress. Holy Grail, a proper feature film shot on proper film and everything, was made in 1974 on a budget so small it wouldn’t even pay for the toilets in Star Wars. Actually, why aren’t there any toilets in Star Wars? Is the Force a cure-all for incontinence? Do let us know. Anyway, as we were saying, it was a proper feature film blah blah blah, and yet still retained the inventiveness, intellectual buffoonery and downright silliness of the Monty Python’s Flying Circus television series. While it ostensibly has a kind of storyline, in reality the movie’s just a big long series of interconnected gags set around the legend of King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table, a model of Camelot and the quest for that most prized of all artefacts, the Holy Grail.

Arthur, summoned by a cranky cardboard God and belligerently ordered to seek the Grail, sets out on his trusty pair of coconuts on his quest, gathering Knights to help in the search along the way. Soon they split up and look in earnest for the holy relic, and encounter many adventures on the way - the much-feared Knights of Ni, angry socialist peasants, the French, the many young virgins in the Castle Anthrax with its grail-shaped beacon, Roger the Shrubber, a witch, a killer rabbit, self-flagellating monks, Tim the Enchanter, the dreaded Castle Aaaaaaaaaaaarrrgh, and quite a bit more.

For those who’ve been here many times before, it’s like coming home to your favourite silly book - and the thing is, after all these years and countless viewings, it’s all still funny - this was Python at the height of their comic powers, and they never quite topped it (though they came close with Life of Brian a few years later). That said, you need to be attuned to the Python style of humour to appreciate Holy Grail. Many a time an unsuspecting guest has been sat down in front of the telly for an eye-opening lesson in great comedy, only to find themselves sitting there in stony silence. “It’s just not funny,� said one former friend. “It’s stupid and silly.� As you can see, this film is absolutely excellent for choosing who you have in your social circle. It’s also very good for projecting onto a large white wall, because then you can trace your favourite scene, colour it in, and make a piece of art that you can sell for a massive sum of money to the National Gallery or your local MP so you can afford to buy a proper screen to impress people with. Size is important. Just ask Zoot.

Arthur presents the Knights of Ni with their shrubbery. Note absence of split-level effect.

Back when US laserdisc publisher The Criterion Collection released their much-desired bloody great big shiny laserdisc of Holy Grail, they apologised for the “deficiencies� in what they thought, after a lengthy search for source prints, to be “the best element available at the time of the transfer�. Python fans everywhere sighed quietly at all the scratches and clicks and bits of dust on the print, but resigned themselves to the fact that it was the best video transfer they were ever going to see of their favourite movie.

But for this freshly-minted DVD version, a new high-definition transfer has been done from elements so pristine the film probably looks better now than it did when it originally played in theatres. Lovingly compressed for DVD by the Sony DVD Center at a jolly high bitrate, this transfer appears to have been reconstructed from the original negatives themselves - something that becomes apparent during one section of the film where an optical “wipe� is used as a shot transition, this small piece of film obviously sourced from a much lower-quality place.

Holy Grail has been transferred at a perfectionist-pleasing aspect ratio of 1.8378870673952641165755919854281:1 (measured) and that’s about as close to the actual theatrical ratio as you’re going to get without buying the rights to the film and a really accurate ruler and doing the whole thing yourself. While there is some minor film damage apparent in places - along with some grainy scenes - few will be complaining as they gaze in awe at the really, really nice niceness of the transfer they get here.

Though a dual-layered disc is used, there’s quite a lot of unused space on the main movie platter, possibly because Sony compressed the film to allow room for extras on the disc which ended up on their own shiny piece of plastic. But fear not - these DVD Center folks know how to wield an encoder, and there aren’t any compression problems at all. The layer change is well placed in a fade to black by someone who was obviously paying attention.

The mediaeval equivalent of Michael Crawford is summarily shut up.

A freshly restored and remixed Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack brings Holy Grail into the digital age with surprising success here, and while there’s been some fairly hefty renovation work done - including, controversially, some re-recording of narration and replacing of sound effects - it all sits perfectly with what was on the original version. This film was originally released with mono sound, and while the remixers have taken the opportunity to use stereo versions of the music cues (all the music came from the audio equivalent of stock footage) and fly a few sound effects around the room, this is still a decidedly mono experience, as it should be.

The US version of this disc did include the original mono audio, but it’s omitted on this PAL version - most likely to make way for additional language tracks. That’s right, two foreign-language tracks are included; a Hungarian dub that sounds like it was sourced from a very, very old film print, and a Russian track. The latter is almost Pythonesque in its silliness - it’s basically the English track playing while a motor-mouthed Russian translates everything at a furious pace. Both these foreign tracks are in mono, though they’re encoded, for some unknown reason, as Dolby Digital 5.1 streams.

The Holy Main Menu in all its celestial glory.

Local budget-disc merchants Rainbow released Holy Grail in Australia some time ago with an old transfer in the wrong aspect ratio, mono sound and no extras. It’s all taken care of on this new release - and there are loads of lovely extras for fans to sink their nasty big pointy teeth into. The menu screens are worth special mention - they’re designed in true Terry Gilliam fashion, fully (and hilariously) animated and feature full 5.1 surround audio. Be sure to let these play through, as there are surprises to be had - and another very funny surprise awaits when you select “play movie�! The extras are split between two discs, with the bonus disc single-layered and full to the brim.

DISC ONE:

Audio Commentaries: Not one, but two commentary tracks. The first comes from the old Criterion laserdisc release, and its inclusion here is welcome. Featuring co-directors Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam, it’s an often nostalgic revisiting of the film for the pair, who have plenty of interest to say - especially Gilliam. The second commentary is new - but it’s also not quite what it seems. Featuring Michael Palin, John Cleese and Eric Idle, it has actually been edited together from three separate recordings - though it’s done so cleverly that few will initially notice. It’s only when you start noticing that they’re all basically ignoring what the others are saying that you realise what’s going on. Going by the intro it does appear that the original intention was to give each of the three their own commentary track; maybe they were edited together for reasons of pace. Nevertheless, this is a most entertaining listen with lots of information, trivia and funny stories.

Extra Special Subtitles: Not normally classed as an extra, the subtitles. But here there are a couple of special subtitle streams to choose from. One allows you to see the original screenplay displayed in sync with the finished movie, which is fascinating. The other one’s a treat - a version for “people who do not like the film� which replaces the spoken dialogue with words from William Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part 2! It’s brilliantly done, and will be especially amusing to those who’ve spent some time with the Bard.

The Killer Rabbit: The Python version of the Follow the White Rabbit extra on the original Matrix DVD (and subsequently used on others), this is what you’d expect - every so often, a rabbit icon appears on screen (encoded using a subtitle stream, but displayable at the same time as other subtitles if that’s what you want). When you hit the “enter� key, you’re taken to behind the scenes photos, storyboards or concept drawings, as well as a few gags at the expense of the accountants. The on-screen rabbit does not survive the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch unscathed, by the way…

The Hard Of Hearing: A special menu item for those of you who are too deaf to read.

Dolby Digital City Trailer: Regular readers will know just how much of this writer’s weekly supply of wrath is exhausted on this thing, so suffice to say that the infernal, over-loud, annoyingly tired Dolby promo has now been moved to the front of the disc, playing right after the Columbia Tristar logo and guaranteed to pin you to the back wall in all the worst ways. Columbia, it’s got to go. Nobody likes it except spotty home cinema demonstrators in chain stores.

A flesh wound.

DISC TWO

Singalong: Three of the film’s songs, edited to work as stand-alone items with added lyric subtitles. Fun for parties of the really drunken kind, but not really essential.

Quest For The Holy Grail Locations: A whopping 47 minutes long, this feature documentary sees Michael Palin and Terry Jones revisiting the shooting locations for the film and reminiscing about the production of it. It’s occasionally wacky (particularly in editing) but mostly gently nostalgic and enormously good value. Typically for a UK digital video production, it’s at 1.78:1 and 16:9 enhanced.

Sacred Relics: A whole host of stuff can be found in this section, not all of it entirely successful. Coconuts is a short Michael Palin sketch - made recently - in which he po-facedly provides instructions on the use of coconuts. It raises a smile, but isn’t especially funny. Japanese Version offers two excerpts from the film with the Japanese dubbed soundtrack that appeared on the Criterion laserdisc - but this time, subtitles have been added that translate the dubbed dialogue back into English! Wonderful stuff, and a shame it wasn’t done on the entire main feature. BBC Film Night runs 17 minutes and dates from 1974 when the movie was made - yes, this is a vintage behind-the-scenes documentary, a marvellous inclusion as a complement for the longer contemporary doco elsewhere in the extras. Old Rubbish and Artefacts are galleries of various promotional material - tickets, posters and so on - while Photos is exactly what you’d expect it to be. Two Trailers are included, the brilliantly funny UK original and what’s billed as a “US 2001 Re-Release Trailer� but which actually turns out to be the same UK trailer with a quick addition at the end. The Cast provides photos of the cast in character, but doesn’t include filmographies or bios. Finally, extensive DVD credits can also be accessed from this section.

Unshot Footage: First up in this section is… Holy Grail in Lego! Well, a section of it, anyway (the Camelot song). It’s absolutely brilliant, and laugh-out-loud funny. Location Recce harks back to the days of the silly stock-footage-abusing gags that the Pythons are so good at, it was made in 2001. And finally, Unused Ideas offers a few screens’ worth of… unused ideas, in the form of pencil sketches.

Excommunication: A simple web link, nothing more. There’s a small Windows program on the disc as well that takes you direct to the site in question, but you could just as easily click the link we’ve provided over on the right.

If you’re one of those many people who click with the brilliant and unrivalled comedy of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, it’ll already be on your shopping list of must-have DVDs (or you’ll already have imported this one, as it’s been out overseas for way too long before it finally reached our shores). And you’ll be in for a treat - video and audio quality, though subject to the ravages of time, is the best it’s ever been for this film. The extensive extras package, meanwhile, is generous and informative. This release is a treat for Python fans, and a great excuse for those who haven’t yet headed out on the quest for the Grail to do so at once. Even Charles Dickens raved about it in his original, unfinished review, penned before he was dismissed from DVDnet for abject silliness but recently dug up from our extensive archives:

“Oh, a wonderful pudding!� Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too… Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so.