Story/Mood: Sirāt is shocking in the best way possible. Its streamlined premise draws you in: A father, Luis, searches for his daughter in the midst of a rave in the Moroccan desert. When he can’t find her, he and his young son follow a rag-tag group of ravers as they traverse the Sahara to a different gathering in the south. Shots of the ravers’ camper van and bus followed by Luis’s smaller vehicle racing through the dunes to insistent electronic beats seduce you—until the sequences end with abrupt cuts—foreshadowing life’s unforeseeable shifts.
“The desert is a place where you can’t hide yourself,” director Oliver Laxe said. “You can’t be distracted. You are obliged to look inside. You know you can die there; you are connected with death. So your senses, your level of perception, are very awake.” And elsewhere: “Watching my film, you die… But people [have also said] they have a feeling of being more connected to life after watching it. People are more in their bodies, which is something we wanted. We wanted to suspend this level of perception, [through] the brain, which takes up too much space. I would say what we did is [closer to] a kind of shock therapy, you know?”
It sounds a bit nuts—but watching Sirāt is both a cinematic and spiritual experience.
The Look: The extended opening sequence of the dancing and music in the desert is mesmerizing as are the stunning shots and views of vertiginous mountains, endless dunes, and violent sandstorms. The music and images are intimately connected. Laxe says he didn’t work with a composer because that kind of film music often narrates and underlines feelings. Instead, he worked closely with electronic musician Kanding Ray. “We talked a lot, we listened a lot, we exchanged a lot of music,” Laxe said. “I’m a filmmaker of images. When I think in images, I speak about grain, texture, rhythm, tempo, color. In a way, [Ray] is a filmmaker and I’m a musician. We created music you can watch and images you can hear.”
Crew: Apart from Luis (Sergi López), most of the other characters are played by nonprofessionals and people who are or were ravers. Their faces, their bodies (some are missing an arm or a leg), their tattoos, ground their performances and give you a sense of who they are without them saying much. You don’t need a backstory to feel these characters are real and have full lives. They just do.
Where to Watch: Streaming on multiple platforms. Though if you can see it in a theater, I’d recommend it because the visuals and sound are so powerful.
Other notes: Sirāt means path in Arabic—the narrow bridge connecting heaven and hell.
Running time: 1 hour 54 minutes. In Spanish, French, and Arabic with English subtitles.
