Daring deception: Jono McLeod's 'My Old School'

Gay filmmaker Jono McLeod's feature-length directorial debut "My Old School" (Magnolia Pictures) opens with the following ominous disclaimer:

"The subject of this film doesn't want to show his face, but you will hear his voice."

McLeod's "My Old School" is a documentary that utilizes animation and dramatization to depict this bizarre true story of deception and discovery.

In 1993, an unusual-looking teen named "Brandon Lee" (his face is described as being like a mask) showed up as a newly enrolled student at Bearsden Academy in a "posh" town at the edge of Glasgow. He carried a briefcase and wore the school tie and a blazer.

As if that wasn't enough to make him stand out, he was gaunt and pale, had tightly curled hair, and wore strange glasses. He had a weird pseudo-Canadian accent, was something of a loner, and wasn't afraid to display his intellect in the classroom. The segments involving most of what occurred during Lee's school years are presented as colorful animation.

In the live-action interview sections, more than 25 of his Bearsden classmates, as well as teachers and administrators, tell their side of the story. And what a story it is! Lee, whose real name is Brian McKinnon, attended Bearsden in the 1970s, at the time he was, in fact, a teenager. In his post-plastic surgery Brandon Lee phase, he was able to pass for a much younger person, fooling fellow students and adults alike.

When he was unmasked, so to speak, every lie he told blew away like a bagpipe tune on the wind. He was in his early 30s, not his mid-teens. His mother wasn't a dead opera singer. His father had died long before he said he did. The "grandmother" he lived with was actually his mother. Whether or not she was in on the gag remains in question.