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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Isabelle Huppert: When youre an actor you keep secrets

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The fearless French actor is known for playing powerful, complex women, mostly recently in Jean-Paul Salomé’s corporate drama La Syndicaliste. But she has her own way of balancing loyalty to film with her feminist principles

Isabelle Huppert has a way of inspiring intrigue – even without trying. On the red carpet at Cannes last month, she raised eyebrows with her choice of footwear: a pair of Balenciaga Anatomic heels, whose tips are moulded to look like human toes. It seemed like quintessential Huppert: an arch joke about the furore over the festival’s insistence on heels for women at events, rising above the idiotic dictate and the barefoot rebels who have recently flouted it.

Except apparently I’m overthinking it: “People were looking at my shoes?” asks the actor, in her soigné tones, on the phone from Paris. Yes, those weird ones with toes. “No, I wasn’t making any statement. Though they were very comfortable, so I was able to climb the steps very pleasantly.” She probably has that nonplussed expression she does so well. It seems very Huppert to deny everything, too.

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