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Oliver Laxe (born in 1982 in France but raised in Spain)
directed
Todos vos Sodes Capitans/ You All Are Captains (2010),
shot in black-and-white,
half a documentary of himself in Morocco teaching filmmaking to the
disadvantaged children of a shelter,
Mimosas (2016), shot with non-professional actors in the Atlas mountains of Morocco,
before the more professional, but also more conventional,
O que Arde/ Fire Will Come (2019).
Sirat (2025), co-written with Santiago Fillol, and again shot mostly with non-professional actors in Morocco (although this time it's mostly young people "found" at raves that the filmmaker himself attended in person), is an existential thriller with no ending.
It begins as a sort of anthropological study, pitting two generations (a family man vs ravers) and two cultures (Europe vs Morocco) but then becomes a tragic road trip, and eventually, at the crucial point, it transforms into a modern version of Henri Clouzot's Le Salaire de la Peur/ Wages of Fear (1953).
"Sirat" is a bridge that connects Heaven and Earth.
A group of men is loading concert equipment on a truck.
We then see the equipment lined up in a desert landscape.
Then we see thousands of young European people dancing to its music.
A gray-haired man, Luis, and his little son, Esteban, are walking around the site showing a photograph to the ravers.
They are looking for Luis' missing daughter, Mar.
When Moroccan soldiers arrive and stop the dancing and expel the Europeans,
a long caravan of vans and trucks leave the place.
The soldiers, armed to their teeth, watch to make sure nobody is left behind.
Suddenly, one of the vans, with five Spanish citizens in it, leaves the caravan speeding through a dusty unpaved area, and dozens of vans follow them. The soldiers are unable to stop them.
The young Spaniards are heading towards another rave.
Luis decides to follow them, determined to find his daughter, despite the fact that it might be dangerous for little Esteban and despite the fact that their van is not equipped for those roads.
They reach a paved road where thousands of vehicles are stranded: there is no gasoline.
The Spanish kids and Luis have to buy gasoline from nomadic sellers.
The two vans continue their journey through the desert.
Luis' van is not appropriate for the rough terrain but he doesn't give up.
When they have to cross a river, the Spanish kids seem to abandon Luis and Esteban but they come back and use their military-grade truck to pull Luis' van with a rope across the river.
Esteban's dog Pipa almost dies when it ingests LSD.
The radio broadcasts news about a war between Morocco and Mauritania, with nations aligning with one or the other belligerent.
Luis and Esteban have little in common with the five drug-loving music-loving kids, but they begin to bond as they travel and camp.
We learn that they are headed south, near the border with Mauritania,
where another rave is taking place.
They witness a long military convoy in the main road, so they decide to take instead a dangerous mountain road. At night it rains. One of the trucks gets stuck
in the mud. In the morning Luis helps the Spanish kids free that truck and tells
Esteban to stay in his van. Esteban, playing with the dog, accidentally releases the handbrake and the van crashes down the mountain.
Luis would like to climb down to the van but it's obviously pointless: Esteban is dead. They decide to continue the journey and take the grief-stricken Luis with them, promising to look for help.
They get to a village that seems to be abandoned. They see a
shepherd but he is scared of them.
Luis set out on foot alone through a white-sand desert.
At night he collapses, but the kids find him and save him.
They resume their journey towards civilization, still surrounded by nothingness.
They take a break to improvise a sort of rave for just the six of them.
They place the loudspeakers in the desert under a strong sun, ingest drugs,
and dance to the music. Luis too. Suddenly one of them explodes: she stepped
on a landmine. Another one explodes running towards her.
The survivors, terrified, realize they are in a minefield.
They walk slowly back to their truck.
There are now only four people left: Luis and three of the kids.
They are paralyzed: there could be landmines anywhere.
A way to find a safe route is to send one of the two trucks ahead (engage the accelerator and block the steering wheel) and see if
it reaches the nearby rocky hill: the truck explodes halfway.
Now they only have one truck. They drive it to the place of the explosion.
The distance to the rocky hill is now even shorter, but the only way to find
a safe route is again to let the remaining truck drive by itself in a straight line. This truck almost makes it but eventually it blows up.
They haven't found a safe path to the rocky hill.
Luis, psychologically exhausted, takes his chance and walks
straight forward until he reaches the rocky outcrop.
He signals to them to follow his footsteps. The first one to attempt blows up.
Clearly, Luis was just lucky.
The last two kids, Steffi and Josh, decide to close their eyes and walk straight.
They succeed and the three of them climb to the top of the hill.
The camera closes in to one of the loudspeakers that remain in the desert.
The last scene shows the trio on a train full of refugees, and then just
the railtracks in the desert.
(Copyright © 2024 Piero Scaruffi | Terms of use )
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