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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‘Truly unwatchable’: writers on their toughest scenes of movie violence

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For the return of the gory Saw franchise, Guardian writers remember the hardest scenes of big screen violence they’ve had to endure

A rape-revenge thriller told in reverse, Gaspar Noé’s infamous provocation opens with the revenge part first, as two men (Vincent Cassel and Albert Dupontel) embark on a frantic search for the monster who sexually assaulted and mutilated the woman (Monica Bellucci) at the center of their lives. As they descend into a BDSM club called The Rectum, Noé levels his own kind of assault on the audience, with the camera swirling relentlessly down this chaotic inferno and the soundtrack enforcing a feeling of deep disorientation, like a carnival ride due for decommission. When one of the men finally identifies their target – falsely, as it happens – he pulverizes his face with a fire extinguisher, the camera following every swing. Irréversible will later stage the rape through one long, pitilessly static take, but this sequence is a blow to the solar plexus, and we never fully recover from it. Scott Tobias

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