"The Mother of All Lies" creatively relates a 1981 Moroccan massacre

In “The Mother of All Lies” Moroccan writer/director Asmae El Moudir struggles to understand why her austere, joyless grandmother Hadja has only one photo of El Moudir, with her misidentified. Hadja refuses to explain. Totally exasperated, El Moudir and her father inventively recreate in miniature with handmade clay dolls and houses their old Casablanca neighborhood June 20, 1981.

Eventually, El Moudir will learn about that night. Reacting to demonstrations over the exorbitant price of bread, soldiers forcefully beat on doors, force people from their homes, throw them into overcrowded cells, and, later, drag out the dead to bury them in mass graves in the new cemetery, previously a football pitch. Dozens of bodies will be unearthed in 2005.

Seeking information about the six hundred plus victims of what are referred to as the Bread Riots, with her father’s help in constructing the diminutive but realistic looking homes and square (complete with lights that work), El Moudir interrogates friends, relatives, and neighbors, slowly but relentlessly eliciting details. One painful story woven throughout is of Mallika seeking the body of her murdered sister Fatima.

What differentiates “The Mother of All Lies” from other admirable investigations into such brutal repression is El Moudir’s reliance on her creation of the small-scale Sebata Casablanca district where she lives. Throughout, El Moudir’s voiceover narrative remains confrontational and honest. She notes that when she asked an artist to draw her grandmother, “I didn’t describe her face. I described her nature. I told him she was a dictator who oppresses everyone.” And Hadja embodies that demeanor, a morose presence who repeatedly refused to participate, agreeing only after El Moudir cast an actress for her part.

Though the film builds slowly, it’s a valuable journey. El Moudir ends her inquiry decisively, saying, “We don’t measure the pain of silence until we speak up.” She speaks eloquently from the heart. In Arabic with English subtitles, “The Mother of All Lies” screens at Webster University’s Winifred Moore auditorium Saturday, October 5, and Sunday, October 6, at 7:00 each of those evenings. For more information, you may visit the film series website.