“The Mother of All Lies” (2023), whose original title is “White Lies,” was Morrocco’s submission to the 2024 Oscars’ “Best International Feature Film” category. This documentary revolves around writer and director Asmae El Moudir, her family and childhood neighbors. With the help of her father, Mohamed El Moudir, the filmmaker recreates a miniature model of their Casablanca neighborhood in an atelier three hours away. Once complete, her mother, Ouardia Zorkani, who designed the clay figurines’ clothes, neighbors, Said Masrour and Abdallah Ez Zouid, and the feared matriarch, El Modir’s cane-wielding grandma, Zahra Jeddaoui, gather to recollect past memories, culminating in the recreation of the fateful day of the Bread Riot, aka 1981 Moroccan riot, aka Casablanca bread riots on June 20, 1981, which predates the filmmaker’s birth.
“The Mother of All Lies” is the kind of documentary that may get lost in translation if the viewer has no knowledge of Moroccan history. The primary purpose of this documentary is not to educate outsiders so keep on moving if you are looking for a primer on Moroccan history, but for fellow countrymen to meditate on how that era personally affected them and their descendants. The film reflects less on a historical event than a collective trauma. El Moudir only provides context after one hour, which reflects her priorities. Her story begins by highlighting the customs of her surroundings then contrast her family’s practices, which is to follow grandma’s lead.
Here is a cheat sheet so you can avoid watching “The Mother of All Lies” aimlessly without knowing which themes to follow and which elements of the story are significant. Hassan II reigned as the second king of Morocco from February 26, 1961 through July 23, 1999. Claiming that photography is a sin, Grandma only allows one photograph in their apartment, a framed black and white photograph of Hassan II. Even though he instituted a constitution, the first twenty years of his reign were considered authoritarian and called the “years of lead.” Lead is presumably a reference to the bullets used to execute anyone perceived as dissenting with the king.  Spain decolonized and withdrew from Western Sahara and ceded control to Mauritania and Morocco, but the Sahrawi indigenous Polisario Front (Popular Front for the Liberation of the Saguia el Hamra and Rio de Oro) fought for an independent Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic; thus the Western Sahara War began. Mauritania gave up in 1979.  There is a ceasefire, but technically it is still unresolved, and Morocco is violating international law. To put it in common terms, “Who is going to check me boo.” Apparently, no one. So, the UN classifies Western Sahara as a non-decolonized territory, non-self-governing territory, which falls under Spain as the de jure administering state (a technicality) and under the international laws of military occupation. The UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) is the UN peacekeeping mission which has been trying to hold a referendum for locals to vote for independence from or integration into Morrocco since 1991. Algeria is an indigenous ally in the UN.
“The Mother of All Lies” steers clear of offering a bird’s eye view of the international scope of the domestic de facto uprising and does not theorize on the ongoing impact of colonization even in the face of superficial independence from European occupation. Like an average person, El Moudir is only concerned with how oppressive her home life was and pulls back the lens just far enough to extend to her surroundings so she can understand the motivating factors that influenced her childhood, a life without photographs. It is also probably just a common sense move not to critique a government whose head is the son of Hassaan II, Mohammed VI, who is considered an improvement from his authoritarian father. As a result of this war, cost of food went up in Morocco, which led to protests. These protests resulted in the destruction of property, so the police and military executed protestors, which resulted in The Bread Martyrs, which includes one young woman, Fatima, a brilliant student who resided in her family’s building. The government arrested Said, who was a protestor, and Abdallah, who was not. Fatima’s presence comes in the form of a black and white photograph, another form of protest since the government did not allow families to bury or mourn the dead in violation of Islamic mores. Fatima’s sister, Malika, only appears in filmed interviews that the participants watch in the atelier. Even though the filmmaker never spells it out, grandma believes photographs, or any memorialization of images can result in reprisal or death. 
“The Mother of All Lies” is a form of civil disobedience against grandma and Hassan’s oppressive rule. Like “Marwencol” (2010), El Moudir uses a medium like a miniature town with figurines to recreate history, especially since it was forbidden to talk about the Bread Riots or its victims. A normally playful, childlike activity functions like a do-it-yourself, art therapy for a group which includes family and friends. Creation functions as a form of expression and as a premise for reunion among people who may not want to interact under normal circumstances. The denouement climaxes with El Moudir taking the place of Godzilla or Hong Kong, a human kaiju directing the toy soldiers to wreak havoc. It is a meta, down to earth take on the disaster film since a filmmaker is responsible for the onscreen destruction, except this filmmaker is visible and finally experiencing the other side’s inhumane, callous reprisal without sympathizing with them. 
Grandma is a reluctant participant and a silent threat—she breaks things! Will she destroy the model town and its inanimate objects before the film ends? She further revises history by refusing her granddaughter’s title of filmmaker and claiming that she is a journalist. It is couched in the terms of arbitrary morality, policing of women. Filmmakers and people who allow themselves to appear in photographs are sluts. The other participants experience catharsis by either confronting grandma for her incessant intimidation or verbalizing their outrage to El Moudir, who promised freedom of expression and does not deliver by insisting that grandma participate in her enterprise. El Moudir waits until the end to humanize her grandmother and reveal how she became a wife and mother. Without context, “The Mother of All Lies” feels like it will be an expose of family secrets or abuse, which creates the expectation that Jeddaoui is the villain, which is not the intention considering the eleventh-hour rehabilitation of her image. Instead she gets reframed as a woman who developed poor coping mechanisms out of fear and physical abuse to terrorize and succeed at protecting future generations. If that point had been made earlier, it would not have detracted the momentum of the main plot.
If you are concerned that “The Mother of All Lies” is a downer, don’t be. It feels more like a saucy memoir with adults at play before the proceedings get grim. She uses the surreal notes of her quotidian life such as Hawaiian backdrops at photography studios to cover one wall in her interior space. El Moudir ends on a high note by transforming the emergency red rotating lights to a more tranquil, romantic lavender and blues familiar to moviegoers for appearing in such films as “All of Us Strangers” (2023). As the film unfolds, the line between reality and representation blurs as the transition back to reality increases as it nears the final scene. El Moudir takes apart her creation for the camera as if to prepare us to shake off the all-enveloping world she created and transition back to the real world. 
El Moudir’s sophomore feature is a creative revolutionary triumph, but perhaps too personal and inscrutable for anyone outside her circle to fully appreciate her artistic rigor in adhering to people’s history/stories, instead of rulers and countries. Visually “The Mother of All Lies” is a riveting playground, but to appreciate it, you must be willing to read subtitles and navigate a narrative without it being easily accessible to outsiders. You will have to go with the flow even when you are lost.