notjustaboutsex

A Liar’s Autobiography , is a strangely wonderful film adventure – a dolby 3d animated auto- biography of a dead man. According to the credits, no medium was used, only the good sense of Month Python’s Graham Chapman who recorded his voice two years before his early death at forty-eight.

Chapman, alcoholic and gay, straddled life’s highway, sometimes having his way with the world through his comic genius, and at other points, burdened with alcoholism and zealous sexual activity. As one person said upon leaving the theatre, “I’ve never heard so many versions of Sit On My Face before, referring to a musical extravaganza of this sexually liberating tune.

The film uses fourteen different animation groups to tell Graham’s story, from early childhood, through Eton, Cambridge and his success as a Python. The fantastic array of animation is aided by the real life voices of Michael Palin, Terry Jones, John Cleese and Terry Gillian all creating a breathing testament to this man’s life. Cameron Diaz also does a goofy Austrian Freud voice.

Bill Jones, Jeff Simpson and Ben Timlett direct and know their subject well. It’s a wonderful homage to the one Python whose career did not extend past being with the group. It’s often funny and quite adult and I particularly liked the Scarborough segment. Towards the end, the storyline seemed a bit dense, but perhaps that’s how his life was at the end. Still, it’s a magical mystery tour which does honor to his  memory.