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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Ultraman: Rising review – endearing kaiju animation battles the monster that is parenting

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Appealing superhero film saddles a kaiju fighter with an orphaned infant, who brings challenges to test supernanny’s domestic mettle

In this family superhero animation with a twist, the monster that must be grappled with by our hero is parenthood – and specifically baby-care. We open in Odaiba, Japan, with a flashback to the childhood of Ken Sato, whose dad is passionate about kaiju, the giant monsters of Japanese pop culture (of which Godzilla is probably the best known in the west). Twenty years later, Ken is a baseball star by day and gigantic kaiju fighter Ultraman by night (or indeed, whenever the kaiju show up) though like his father before him, it’s more about protecting people and monsters from each other than a standard slay-the-beast trajectory.

Things get complicated when he finds himself unexpectedly landed with an orphaned baby kaiju to look after. Ken is not prepared for single parenthood, and is duly rushed off his feet managing the competing demands of work and adopted infant, getting covered in bodily fluids in the process, and making all sorts of delightful discoveries about the limits of his own knowledge. “Babies get acid reflux?” he exclaims despairingly at one point, in a line that feels rooted in lived experience. Mind you, this baby is 35ft tall and breathes fire, so, you know, a challenge even for Supernanny.

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