London Film Festival 2012 – day six: A Liar’s Autobiography

Graham Chapman, most commonly known as “the dead one from Monty Python”, stars in what is not a documentary and not even a Monty Python film, but his own story, told by the man himself.

This surreal 3D animated journey into the famous Python’s account is hammered with absurd memories, recorded by Chapman from a reading of his autobiography shortly before he died of cancer in 1989. It will make hardcore fans of the six British comedians revel in bittersweet nostalgia.

Chapman’s own voice takes the audience from his early years, his Cambridge days and first pipes smoked, the beginning of the Monty Python and his discovered homosexuality, to parties with Keith Moon and a lot of bizarre occasions it’s hard to believe took place. We wonder, in fact, if they really did. When asked what was true about Chapman’s own story, Monty Python’s Terry Jones said: “Nothing…it’s all a downright, absolute, blackguardly lie.”

All the remaining members of the Monty Python set, excluding Eric Idle, star as well, not only playing themselves but different characters too: Michael Palin is Chapman’s father and Terry Jones is his mother, while Terry Gilliam plays his psychiatrist. Cameron Diaz has a cameo appearance as well, as a cheerful, rather feminine Sigmund Freud.

Produced and directed by Bill Jones, Ben Timlett and Jeff Simpson, this manic animated feature is a real must-see for all Monty Python fans, who will see re-united for the first time in 23 years the group of eccentrics who changed the course of British comedy history.

Verdict: •••

Eleonora Ricotta

Read more reviews from the 56^th London Film Festival here.

Watch the trailer for A Liar’s Autobiography here