What starts out as The Searchers type allegory of taming the untameable, this Moroccan desert set film by Spanish helmer Oliver Laxe (Fire Will Come), morphs into an existentialist experimental film that defies categorization. It's at once tragic and riveting at the same time. And you can't look away in this downer for two hours. And I respect Laxe for orchestrating the power over us.
The first thing we see is the great expanse of canyon walls of the Moroccan desert as a large, but well worn speaker system is set up. Soon, it's the rave scene of the weathered, sinewy, dusty bodies gyrating to the heavy bass of the techno music. This is not the Burning Man kind of rave, the group is decidedly older with gnarly teeth, braids and bits of limbs missing. Among them, we see Luis (Sergi López) and his pre-teen son Esteban (Bruno Núñez), moving from one raver to another, handing out a 'Missing Person' sign. They are looking for Sergi's daughter Mar, whom they last heard from five months ago. Someone told them that she might be at this particular rave. But no one there knows her.
A raid from local police breaks up the gathering, and instead of following the caravan of cars to evacuate, ragtag of French ravers - Steff, Josh, Bigui, Jade and Tonin breaks off from the crowd with their decked out RVs and Luis and Esteban follow them in their minivan. So starts a road movie of sorts that's filled with death and explosions and unimaginable grief.
The title card indicates that Sirât in Arabic means a narrow bridge between heaven and hell. And that is what the film portrays. A purgatory that plays out in the backdrop of the world in chaos, the inescapable reality of indiscriminate deaths and misery even in the remotest places on earth. Yep, we are all in this, experiencing the end of the world, together.
The improbable sound of techno beats (scored by French musician Kangding Ray) against nothingness of the desert, move the film along and play pivotal roles in key moments of the film.
Sirât is part Madmax, part Sorcerer, part Antonioni, contemplating where Cormac McCarthy's The Road left off. It's not making a grand statement about the hopelessness of the state of the world. It shows how random death stalks, that grief is universal, that we can't ignore the suffering of others because, again, we are all in this together.
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