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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The loss of actor Lee Sun-kyun casts a chill shadow over Korea’s film world | Peter Bradshaw

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Lee, who has died aged 48, was a homegrown star who graduated to global fame in the multi-award-winning Parasite

K-class, K-prestige and K-artistry found their apogee in the movies with Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar-winning 2019 smash Parasite – and this colossally successful South Korean social satire certainly found a place for one of that country’s biggest stars.

In his 40s and in his prime, with a string of blue-chip movie credits and a home-turf household name due to his TV work, Lee Sun-kyun displayed in Parasite his discreet charisma and sleek movie-star handsomeness with a sexual presence that could be dialled up or down.

It was a supporting role, and his character – destined here to be upstaged – was the karmic opposite of the star, Song Kang-ho, who played Kim, the rackety head of a predatory family of petty criminals who infiltrate a wealthy household as an apparently unrelated bunch of live-in servants. Their employer is Mr Park, played by Lee, a well-to-do man with a picture-perfect lifestyle who is, perhaps, Jekyll to Kim’s Hyde, but Lee’s performance radiated a kind of smugness in the glamour.

Fans of Lee might well have savoured the residual aura of sexuality that he brought with him – from movies where he played a married man having (or ambiguously about to have) a forbidden relationship.

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