An Arthurian Review
December 12, 1986
A review of the "Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Copyright © 1998 Property of Deborah K. Fletcher. All rights reserved.
Monty Python's The Holy Grail is a parody of the Arthurian Legend, set in the tenth century. It is juxtaposed with modern times, and with animated sequences at various points. The georgraphic
setting is England.
The main characters of The Holy Grail are King Arthur, Sir Bedivere, Sir Laucelot the Brave, Sir Galahad the Pure, and Sir Robin the Not-So-Brave. Sir Robin is the only one of the five who is
not part of the original legend.
In The Holy Grail, King Arthur sets out on a quest for the Grail. He approaches a castle, and the guards discuss swallows carrying coconuts. This is an anachronistic touch which adds to the
overall humour of the movie, as it is returned to several times.
Arthur rides through a town which has been struck by the plague. Carts drive through the
streets, collecting dead bodies. At one point, a sickly man is carried out for the cart. He protests
and his health improves rapidly . The cartman kills him and carries him away. The dialogue in
this scene is very funny, contrasting sharply with the piles of dead bodies.
Leaving the town, Arthur meets up with a group of peasants who live in a commune and have a
democratic system of government. One of them, Dennis, lectures Arthur on political repression
of peasants. This parallels the Saxon philosophy during the Arthurian period.
As a parody of typical chivalry, Arthur fights the Black Knight in single combat. Arthur hacks the
knight into pieces, and the knight continues fighting until Arthur puts a sword through him.
Entering another town, Arthur meets up with a procession of monks who do penance by hitting
themselves in the face with boards.
This is an apparent parody of such things as hair shirts and whips.
In the town, the peasants demonstrate imbecilic logic in the course of a witch trial, eventually
proving that she is not a witch.
Arthur meets up with Bedivere, Launcelot, Galahad, and Robin, and they all go to Camelot. The
knights revel at Camelot, performing music-hall stunts.
Some time later, while "riding," Arthur and the knights have a holy vision. This is a semi-
animated sequence, with God appearing in a rift in the sky.
The knights meet up with Frenchmen who hold a castle in England. The French throw livestock
at the knights . The knights retaliate with a huge wooden rabbit, but forget to put the people in it.
The rabbit is heaved over the battlements by the French. This sequence illustrates the war
between the Frankish and British tribes, and also parodies the seige of Troy.
After the "Trojan Rabbit" scene, the movie switches to a sequence called the Tale of Sir Robin.
In this section Robin meets a three-headed knight who has an argument with himself, then
decides to attack Robin. Robin runs away and escapes. This sequence is prefaced by the
appearance of the "Famous Historian, " who is a modern figure, talking about the quest. He is
an anachronistic element of the film.
An animated sequence of monks, jumping off the earth separates the Tale of Sir Robin from the
following sequence: the Tale of Sir Galahad.
Galahad climbs a mountain in search of the Grail. He sees a castle in the distance with a golden
Grail shining over it. He goes to the castle and meets the teenage girls who live there. They tell
him that the castle is Castle Anthrax. He introduces himself as Galahad the Chaste, but the
pursuit he suffers from the girls makes Galahad the Chased a more appropriate name. He is
rescued by Sir Launcelot.
Meanwhile, Arthur and Bedivere talk to an old man in a town. The old man sends them to an
enchanter, and the man and town disappear to become a typically mist-filled forest. They meet a
group of knights, the Knights Who Say "Nee!," and are made to go on a quest for a sacrificial
shrubbery. An animated sequence, showing the quest for the shrubbery, follows.
The Tale of Sir Launcelot follows the sequence of the Knights Who Say "Nee!." In this
sequence, a rescue mission is turned topsy-turvy by Launcelot's realization that the "damsel"
whom he has saved is a young man named Herbert. This is a parody of the typically chivalric
element of the Arthurian legends in which the knights -- especially Launcelot -- always save
damsels in distress.
The knights join together again, and an animated sequence shows them looking for the
enchanter. The rapid change of seasons in the sequence illustrates the passage of time. They
eventually find the enchanter Time, who tells them that they will find the Grail at Caer Bannog.
The knights make their way to the cave at Caer Bannog and meet up with a killer bunny, which
looks harmless but inflicts carnage. Among the well-known knights ( from the original legend )
who are killed by the bunny are Gawain, Ector, and Bors. The bunny is finally killed with the
Holy Handgrenade of Antioch. A ceremony is performed in which a priest reads from The Book
of Armaments, chapter two, verses nine through seventeen.
After the bunny is killed, the knights enter the cave and find an Aramaic inscription made by
Joseph. They are suddenly attacked by the Black Beast of Aargh. This is followed by an
animated sequence of the Black Beast chasing the knights. The animation is terminated abrubtly
when the animator has a heart attack.
By this point, modern British police are following the knights, investigating the murder of a knight
whose body is found by a local woman.
The knights come to the Bridge of Death, which spans the Gorge of Eternal Peril. They are
added three questions each. Those who answer correctly can cross, while those who are wrong
are thrown into the Gorge. This parallels the Riddle of the Sphinx, in which travelers were
traditionally questioned. The death of the old man who guards the bridge parallels the suicide of
the Sphinx when he received an answer to his riddle.
Once across the bridge, Launcelot is arrested by modern police on a charge of murder. This is a
juxtapostion of two different periods of British history.
The remaining knights finally reach Castle Aargh, and find it occupied by the same Frenchmen
who they meet early in the film. They find that there is no Grail there, and attack in the name of
the Lord. A host of mounted knights floods in to help Arthur. The battle is cut short when the
police drive up and start arresting the main characters. The film ends when a police officer puts
his hand over the lense of the camera. The knights never find The Holy Grail.
The theme of The Holy Grail is a parody of the Arthurian myths. It includes political satire, and a satirization of modern film-making conventions. The pseudo-Swedish subtitles in the opening
frames are a parody fo the subtitles on foreign films.
All of the elements of the film, Arthurian, modern, and animated, are tied together at the end,
when people from two different time periods are thrown together.
Please View and Sign My Guestbook
Back to Debbie Fletcher