The Mother of All Lies review – pursuing the truth of Morocco’s brutal dictatorship years

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Asmae El Moudir employs a delicate mix of handmade replicas and oral testimony to brilliantly evoke personal and collective trauma Between those who refuse to remember and those who struggle to forget, a tumultuous clash of minds occupies the centre of Asmae El Moudir’s inventive documentary, a prize-winner at last year’s Cannes film festival. Through a constellation of clay figurines and dollhouse-style miniature sets, most of which were constructed by El Moudir’s father, the director recreates her oppressive childhood in the Sebata district of Casablanca. Under the watchful eyes of her domineering grandmother Zahra, all personal photos are banished from the house, save for a picture of King Hassan II. The delicate mix of handmade replicas and oral testimony brilliantly evokes the personal and collective trauma that stem from Morocco’s “Years of Lead” – a period of state brutality under Hassan II’s dictatorial rule. Lingering on the nimble fingers of El Moudir’s father as he puts t
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Oscars 2023: a welcome turn to Ireland aside, these are very conventional picks | Peter Bradshaw

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The Banshees of Inisherin has made a stunning showing, along with welcome nods for Paul Mescal and The Quiet Girl, but there are few other surprises

First: a great deal of joy in Ireland for its tremendous successes on this year’s Academy Award nomination list. Martin McDonagh’s tragicomedy The Banshees Of Inisherin, about two men falling out in a remote island community at the time of the civil war, has a host of nominations: including best picture with McDonagh getting best director and best screenplay nods, best actor for Colin Farrell, best supporting actor(s) for Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan and best supporting actress, for Kerry Condon. In addition to which, Paul Mescal gets a best actor nomination for his performance in Charlotte Wells’s beautiful father-daughter drama Aftersun; Colm Bairéad’s The Quiet Girl is nominated for best international feature and Tom Berkeley and Ross White’s An Irish Goodbye is nominated for best short.

Otherwise, there is some unease at the gravitational pull towards the mainstream: an all-male directing list (Charlotte Wells or Marie Kreutzer could have got in there) and Danielle Deadwyler’s excellent performance in Till is ignored in the best actress list. There has been some haughty online dismissal of Ana de Armas’s nomination for her performance as Marilyn Monroe in Andrew Dominik’s condescending psychodrama Blonde (although the problem is surely with the film rather than De Armas), and a mixed response on social media for the estimable Andrea Riseborough’s best actress nomination for the tough indie drama To Leslie, largely due to a wary response to a celebrity-driven viral campaign. But the always excellent Riseborough certainly shakes things up.

Cate Blanchett naturally takes pole position in the best actress list for her much-acclaimed uber-conductor role in Tár, a female-Furtwängler supernova of problematic power display. However, the best actor list is harder to call – though it could well be that Austin Butler will clinch it for his heartfelt impersonation of Elvis Presley, a performance much admired by the star’s late daughter Lisa Marie Presley.

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