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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Roman Holiday at 70: Audrey Hepburn’s star-making role remains luminous

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The 1953 romantic comedy may lack heft but the Oscar-winner’s charming lead turn makes it an escape worth taking again

When Roman Holiday was released, 70 summers ago, the monarchy was having a fashionable moment. Two months before, the world had watched the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, a relatively young, glamorous face for a fusty institution: the first such event to be globally televised, it made the very principle of royalty seem less like the realm of ancient history. I say “relatively”: the frilly pomp and ceremony of English royalty can’t have been much sexier in 1953 than it was in 2023, though at least they didn’t have official broad-bean quiche to contend with.

There was certainly ample scope for Hollywood to prettify the notion a bit, which is where Roman Holiday proved most fortuitously timed. A romantic comedy that set a quasi-fantasy template for the genre that has endured to the modern era – take Notting Hill, a veritable homage – it played on a mid-century fascination with real-world princesses, with all the duller formalities taken out. Its protagonist, crown princess Ann, is a blank slate on to which any number of princessy ideals could be projected: she’s beautiful, gracious and charismatic, with an all-purpose Euro glamour that can’t be tied to any specific identity, since the screenwriter Dalton Trumbo had elected to make her from a vague imaginary nation. Beside her, England’s young new queen looked positively, rain-soddenly drab.

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