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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Celine Song on adapting her life for surprise hit Past Lives: ‘It becomes its own story’

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Less a love story than a meditation on what-ifs, the film has propelled its debut director to a rarefied strata of acclaim – and away from her own past life

Past Lives opens with a conundrum. A trio perches at a bar: a woman and two men. They’re loosened by wine and conversation, and yet a faint melancholy floats through the air. They trade furtive glances and longing stares; it’s difficult to tell who’s looking at who. Soon we’ll find out who they are: playwright Nora (Greta Lee), her American husband Arthur (John Magaro) and Hae Sung, her childhood sweetheart from South Korea (Teo Yoo). For now, though, all we hear is a background conversation between a pair of perplexed onlookers trading guesses into their relationship. Are they co-workers? Tourists? Lovers? Which guy is she with?

This might be the most explicitly autobiographical moment in Past Lives, a film which follows Nora as she reconnects with Hae Sung multiple times across multiple decades and continents. Less a love story than a meditation on what-ifs, it has propelled its debut director Celine Song to a rarefied strata of acclaim, accruing both rave reviews and early, frantic Oscars buzz since its Sundance premiere earlier this year. The idea for the film came to Song when she too was sitting in an East Village cocktail joint, sandwiched between an old flame from Seoul, who spoke only Korean, and her husband, the screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes, who spoke only English.

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