When Personal Docudrama is an Act and Art of Protest

The making of Asmae El Moudir’s documentary, The Mother of All Lies, started with a pair of related and supposedly casual questions: Why are there no pictures in her parents’ house? Why aren’t pictures of family members allowed in the family? Why do we erase memories? These throbbing questions led El Moudir—who has multiple credits as a writer, producer, and director of the documentary—to embark on a decade-long journey of seeking answers. In her unrelenting quest for answers, she soon realized that her family wasn’t the only one that had consciously banned pictures. Friends and neighbours in her community also have a distrust of holding pictures. Ostracizing pictures from the household is a deliberate and conscious act of keeping a troubling memory at bay.

By the time El Moudir completely finds satisfying answers, ten years have elapsed. The documentary, made by a small-knit people, has been screened at various international film festivals attracting critical acclaim and attention—the docudrama was Morocco’s selection for the international feature category at the just concluded Oscars. After the film’s world premiere in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section, where it clinched the directing prize, the film had continually won laurels and audiences to itself.

Screening at the Spotlight Section of the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, where it was available for both virtual and in-person viewing, the documentary opens its door to another international audience. Made by the Paris and Rabat-based director, screenwriter, and producer, The Mother of All Lies interrogates the nefarious deeds of government officials and how they actively try to obliterate their acts. The parallel between personal stories and national ones is a strong angle the documentary explores. Watching how the documentary’s subjects recount past incidents, El Moudir demonstrates her adept directorial skills by illustrating the interconnectedness between the subjects’ personal stories and her own, as a conscientious filmmaker, with the political story of the documentary.

IT BEGINS IN THE PAST

To produce this indie and experimental documentary, El Moudir assembled family members and neighbours as cast and crew members: her gracious but mildly spoken father, her humorous and outspoken mother, her dictatorial grandmother, with assistance from two neighbours, Said and Mohammed. By co-opting people she shares familial and personal bonds with, El Moudir retains a sense of intimacy in the film.

The Mother of All Lies tethers its plot progression to the story of Fatima, a girl we never meet but whose story is an important narrative arc, the subtle conflict in the director’s family, the neighbours’ tragedy, and the father’s stifled dream which, as the documentary will show, is connected to a national crisis. As the documentary unfolds, it’s beautiful to behold how all these disparate and variant events culminate into a single, yet complex narrative. The Mother of All Lies focuses on how the shadow of a country’s social and historical past affects the director’s life.

El Moudir’s documentary starts slowly by devoting attention to the internal affairs of the director’s family. The documentary introduces us to her family and their distinct traits: the dark humour of her mother, the supportive father, and the grandmother who constantly bickers with domineering poses and stares. Here lies the first introduced conflict: the fight between the grandmother and El Moudir about her decision to opt for a career in filmmaking. At certain points in the documentary, it feels like making the film is El Moudir’s way of fighting back against her grandmother’s dictatorial and firm grip on her family. We catch fragments of every feeling and external affair in the neighbourhood by watching the grandmother act as the customs officer directing the flow of internal and external activities in the family.

After dedicating attention to the internal conflict in the family, the documentary swerves attention into the public domain. From here, the tone and mood of the film get tense and urgent. How much of the memory of a person is lost in the fleeting years? How much do you remember when there aren’t any pictorial references? With the absence of pictures or archival footage, save for one monochrome picture, how do the people lay claim to these tragic and sinister deeds of the government? All these are previously unarticulated questions that the documentary asks before revealing an important situation: The state-sponsored killing of 600 people in Casablanca when they protested against the rise of the price of bread on 20th June 1980.

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When Personal Docudrama is an Act and Art of Protest

IT BEGINS IN THE PAST

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Seyi Lasisi

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