The Mother of All Lies is an astonishing work whose maturity comes from El Moudir’s wide-eyed approach to her family history, where memory and history are quite literally reduced to playthings in order to process the unspeakable events they conjure up.
The result is a sly, often playful but ultimately moving study of community, generational anguish and atrocities covered up by the state that blends documentary technique with originality and polished storytelling skill.
El Moudir, at long last, demands a reckoning, that will uncover old wounds, but also provide closure.
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The Film VerdictStephen Dalton
The Film VerdictStephen Dalton
As a piece of investigative journalism it feels a little too fuzzy, but as an imaginative exercise in non-fiction cinema, it is consistently interesting and often hauntingly beautiful.