SIRÂT

GoMovieReviews Rating: ★★★★

Rated: M

Directed by: Oliver Laxe

Screenplay Written by: Santiago Fillil and Oliver Laxe

Produced by: Domingo Corral, Oliver Laxe, Xavi Font, Pedro Almodóvar, Agustin Almodóvar, Esther Garcia, Oriol Maymó, Mani Mortazavi, Andrea Queralt

Original Music by: Kangding Ray

Starring: Sergi López, Brúno Nuñez, Stefania Gadda, Joshua Liam Henderson, Tonin Janvier, Jade Oukid, Richard Bellamy.

Viewed in Spanish-French with English subtitles.

‘It’s been the end of the world for a long time.’

The definition of SIRÂT is described in the opening of the film.

Director Oliver Laxe explains, ‘Sirât, which translates as “path” or “way.” A path that has two dimensions: the physical and the metaphysical, or spiritual. Sirât is the inner path that pushes you to die before you die […] It’s also the name of the bridge said to connect hell and paradise.’

Hands move speakers.  There’s just the sound of installation.  The effort.  The heat.

A hand flicks all the switches – then, thump, thump, thump.

It’s a desert scene with cliff faces creating an amphitheatre of orange sound.

There’s a crowd.  Smiling faces.  People dancing.

Doof, doof, each character introduced, moving, dancing:

Stef (Stefania Gadda), Josh (Joshua Liam Henderson), Tonin (Tonin Janvier), Bigui (Richard Bellamy).

Then the bewildered: an older man, Luis (Sergi López) and his son Esteban (Brúno Nuñez) and their dog Pipa.

Luis has a photograph in his hand, looking for her.  His daughter.

‘You think she’s here, in Morocco?’

People try to help.  No one knows her.

Jade sees the pictures on his phone and says she has sad eyes.

When the army break up the rave, it’s time to move on.

The small family of strangers agree to take Luis and Esteban with them to the next place.  In the desert.

It’s an odyssey with containers of fuel bought from the back of donkeys; the lines on the road as they travel, mesmerising.

The music is the thread through-out the film, the comment, ‘It’s not for hearing, it’s for dancing.’

That’s what Luis’ daughter used to say.

But the music isn’t the half of it.

It’s the vibrations on the road, shaking the camera so the scene is blurred at the edges like this journey through the desert is a need, a family happy in their lost purgatory.

The journey shown by headlights cutting through the darkness, ‘There’s nothing but dust here.’

Somehow, these people are out in the middle of a desert, looking for a rave while the world is ending.

Oliver Laxe explains, ‘changing course is incredibly hard. And yet, in near-death experiences, something within us seems to crack open. In those moments, transformation becomes possible.’

“Grace is found especially among the excluded,” said Saint Frances of Assisi. Rumi said that broken hearts are the most beautiful, because “that’s how the light gets in.”

The film is a trance to watch until suddenly it’s not.  Like a snap of fingers, Wake Up.  A bracing for the worst to happen to then still be shocked into silence.

Sergi López is the only experienced actor in the film, yet all the characters here are believable, their kindness, their brokenness, their silly.

It’s a film that takes you out into the wilderness, into a nothing of the lost looking for the lost.

A film unique and extreme in a way unexpected.