The Crimson Permanent Assurance

This short is from the Monty Pyhton's and that is pretty obvious. It is funny, strange, well made, interesting and very imaginative. The story has something to say and it is good satire considering the time it was made.

This short is about an uprising by the elderly workers against the corporate young men who treat them like garbage. Their building turns into some kind of pirate ship and they prepare for battle with the corporate world.

With lots of humor, a fine production design and a typical Monty Python ending this is a very good short film.

The best thing about "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life" is without a doubt the short film that opens it. Directed by Terry Gilliam and originally conceived as an animated sequence, "The Crimson Permanent Assurance" is a crucial step in Gilliam's career as a director. His previous two solo efforts as director, the inconsequential "Jabberwocky" and the brilliant-in-its-own-way "Time Bandits" saw him developing his visual style much further than he did for his scenes for "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", with "Time Bandits" arguably being the first 'Gilliam-esque' film he made. Still, "Time Bandits" didn't see his style fully developed, and "The Crimson Permanent Assurance" is an even more bizarre film, but with a far more confident and clear-cut visual style. Simply put: Gilliam was ready for "Brazil". This segment is the best in the film from a cinematic viewpoint, without a doubt, and even gives some of the other segments a run for their money in terms of the quality of the comedy, which involves office clerks who become pirates. Yes, it is quite strange.

The Crimson Permanent Assurance is, to me, one of the high points of Monty Python and His Flying Circus. It was created in conjunction with the film The Meaning of Life but was created by Terry Gilliam in a separate studio. He went way over budget without informing the others and when it was finished, they wondered what to do with it; it did not fit in with the rest of the movie. They decided to include it as if it were a separate short to be shown before the feature. The short was so well received at the Cannes Film Festival that The Meaning of Life was guaranteed to be a success.

The short was originally intended to be a five-minute animated short but Gilliam felt that it would be more suited to live action. It became a 30 minute film and was then edited to 16 minutes. The film is a wonderful, highly imaginative, funny, anti-capitalist fantasy, with a very nice song.

It begins by showing what appears to be a ship's sails, which turn out actually to be canvasses that are covering the face of a large old building that is being cleaned. The original impression, however, turns out to be the reality. The Crimson Permanent Assurance Company is a very British company that has been in existence for a long, long time. Its staff loyalty has left it with a geriatric staff, who have worked there all their lives. The company has been purchased by The Very Big Corporation of America, which brings in efficiency experts to rank the staff. When a staff member is fired for being slow, rebellion erupts. Evidently, this moment has been anticipated, because everybody seems to know exactly what to do: how to use office equipment as weapons, the chain of command, that the building is able to sail off on the "Wide Accountant-sea", etc. Since the charm of the movie is its element of surprise, I will say no more (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).

One question remains: is The Crimson Permanent Assurance a separate short film or an integral part of the feature film The Meaning of Life? The answer is, "Yes!"

For more information, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crimson_Permanent_Assurance

Terry Gilliam has proven himself as an incredible director of dream imagery. the context of his films exist in an unreality complete with sarcasm and satire. Crimson is the perfect example of Gilliam's attitude towards the structure of big business (Brazil also exists on this level). It mixes comedic violence and well-crafted sets to create a intro for The Meaning of Life. Look for Matt Frewer in the meeting room and Michael Palin outside the window.

It's funny & imaginative, as everyone else has mentioned. However almost no-one else has mentioned that the film was intensely satirical when it came out - practically everything in it captured the zeitgeist in London at the start of the 80s, from the flapping sacking around office buildings being refurbished to the wholesale layoffs/business closures. Maybe irrelevant to the casual viewer but IMO it's the most political Gilliam film that I've seen. Incidentally I believe that the building used in the exterior shots is Loundes House - still standing just north of Finsbury Square in the City of London.