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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Bandit review – shallow crime caper is saucer-eyed over real-life 1980s bank robber

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Josh Duhamel charms as ‘flying bandit’ Gilbert Galvan, who pulled off nearly 60 robberies across Canada, but this light-hearted retelling lacks any insight

Bandit is one of those true-crime films where you come away with the impression that the film-makers have spent a bit too long hanging out with their subject, sitting in smoky bars listening to tall tales about the good ol’ bad days. It’s sincere enough but tells an utterly hokey and indulgent story about armed robber Gilbert Galvan, who went on a stick-up spree across Canada in the 1980s, pulling off nearly 60 robberies in three years targeting banks and jewellers. Newspapers called him “the flying bandit”.

The film paints Galvan’s crimes as more or less victimless – repeatedly showing what a polite and cordial bank robber he is, never firing a gun. It’s a glossy old-fashioned movie, mixing a bit of action with tongue-in-cheek comedy. Josh Duhamel gives a performance that’s all charm and no depth as Galvan, a career criminal we first meet escaping from a Michigan prison and hightailing it north of the border. In Ottawa, he changes his name to Robert Whiteman and gets into the armed robbery business, bankrolled by a local criminal hardman (Mel Gibson, about as menacing as a fairy cake).

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