For a lot of people, Monty Python and the Holy Grail is humorous piece of cinema, entertaining a multitude of audiences for over four decades, and helping to cement the comedy troupe's bonafides as masters of hilarity. Sure, it's all those things to me, but it is also more. There is a sobering element to it that has nothing to do with the film itself.
I was a junior in high school and, up to that point, had only ever seen the Monty Python's Flying Circus TV show. A multimedia class taken earlier in high school had seen a fair amount of students using Ren & Stimpy and Monty Python audio files for projects (or just to mess around with), and so I'd heard snippets of dialogue from Holy Grail before seeing the film (if I never hear "We are the knights who say 'ni'" ever again, that will be okay).
Fast forward to junior year, and I was at a friend's house. The memory cheats as to whether it was a weeknight or a weekend, but let's go with a weekend. I remember it being a leisurely day of spending time together, finding various things to occupy ourselves with. The sunlight was also streaming-in through the windows of the large, two-story living room (I think realtors refer to those as 'cathedral ceilings'). I remember the sunshine felt odd juxtaposed to the small, dark room we ended up in to watch the movie.
It was an odd sort of room. Small dimensions with a low ceiling, it was situated off the second floor, which was pretty much one, big open space. It overlooked the living room, and I don't remember it being used for much. The small room housing the tiny TV and VCR was probably meant as a storage cubbyhole. It suited our purposes fine. About the movie, my friend asked, "Have you seen it?" When I replied in the negative, he said, "It's funny, you'll like it." I was relieved he didn't harangue me for the lack of viewing history.
The screening commenced and, yes, it was a humorous film. Of course, I wasn't completely paying attention to the little TV screen in front of us. There was no furniture in the cramped space. We were laying on the floor, our backs propped against one of the walls. Our legs looked long ahead of us, our feet almost tall enough to reach the top of the low-slung TV stand. Our feet, dear reader, our feet. They were so close. They began to touch, first because I tired of semi-consciously keeping my foot upright enough so that it didn't touch his, and then because he gently let his right foot firmly press against my left.
We stayed like that for awhile. It probably wasn't as long as it felt, but it was one of those happy moments, so fleeting as to seem inconsequential, but to a young man not yet out, and with a friend who meant the world to him, it was everything. Looking back, it seems like such a chaste moment that looms large in the memory, but could only mean so much to someone who'd shared such little intimacy with a person upon whom their world revolved around.
The door suddenly opened. It was his mom, and we both jolted our legs as if they'd been hit by an electrical current. She was very quizzical about what we were doing. "Watching a movie, mom," was his somewhat annoyed explanation. She seemed hesitant, asking questions about the movie and then, finally, reluctantly, leaving the room. We finished the film and it was fine, but it wasn't the same as earlier. Our feet were nowhere near each other for the remainder of the run time.
Monty Python the Holy Grail seems to have special screenings at various theaters from time to time. Most recently, it played at the local art theater a few weeks ago. I ran into some friends downtown who were on their way to see it. They were smiling and happy. Alas, the movie evokes more of a wistful reaction from yours truly. I've watched it a few times since that day in high school, and it's been fine, but I feel like it doesn't resonate with me the way it does with others.
That's probably because I can't escape that small, dark room.
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