The phenomenon behind 'Sirāt', the film shortlisted for the Academy Awards

In Islam, sirat is the bridge over hell that all souls must cross on the way to paradise. Oliver Laxe's fourth feature film, produced by El Deseo (Pedro Almodóvar’s production company), tells the story of the unique journey of a man played by Sergi López, along with his youngest son, on their way to a rave in Morocco to try to find his older daughter. It is a cathartic journey, as arduous as traversing the underworld, both for the characters and the viewer; an honest and captivating film experience that has left no one indifferent, and which has propelled its director beyond the arthouse circuit, thanks to the boost provided by winning the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

The old and the new

Sirāt pushes the boundaries of film narrative to offer a sensory immersion in a contemporary imaginary world –namely, raves– and at the same time an ancestral one, the desert, which serves here as a powerful metaphor for a primeval immensity that overwhelms us. This film is laced with anti-establishment rage, an eloquent expression of a world in crisis, and also a spiritual quest that connects with the concerns of a director who has decided to move away from the hubbub of urban life to live in Vilela, a small village in the Spanish province of Lugo with hardly any inhabitants.  

This life choice seems to fit perfectly with Laxe's previous work, linked to the current of so-called slow cinema or contemplative cinema, born to counter the mindless frenzy of so many current movie productions, driven by the obsession with pure entertainment. But, on this occasion, the filmmaker endows his film with a surprising fury that we had not seen in previous titles, such as Mimosas (2016) or Lo que arde (Fire Will Come) (2019). 

The Bressonian spirit of observation gives way to something much more organic and texture-based, which makes the viewer feel the pain and difficulties of traveling through the desert in a way similar to that of a cult classic of American cinema from the seventies, Sorcerer (1977), by William Friedkin. At the same time, the allegorical resonances remind us of Pasolini’s Teorema (1968) or The Pigsty (1969), as well as the journeys of initiation of Andrei Tarkovsky's movies.

From the underground to the Oscars

Laxe is almost two meters tall, with a look resembling a rock musician of the grunge era or a fashion model, thoughtful and slow in his gestures, giving the impression that he gives his ideas deep thought before speaking. His career has grown, until now, in the fertile margins of an underground that has given him more recognition among film critics than actual box office revenues. 

With Sirāt, unexpectedly, he has managed to break through, crossing the bridge to reach a mainstream popularity that may make him a bit uncomfortable. Whether his next project will be a film that gives him a more or less stable place among mainstream audiences or if he will prefer to return to the purity of the most exclusive arthouse cinema is anybody’s guess. This decision may be influenced by his performance at the Hollywood Academy Awards, which would not seem to be the best place for a hard-to-classify film like this one.

In his interviews, Laxe is not afraid to display a mystical side that for him exists in people who opt for a nomadic life, pursuing perpetual pleasure in music and drug-fuelled parties taking place in Earth-bound limbos. Ravers are, in his opinion, the apparent victims of a Peter Pan complex who, on the other hand, reveal themselves to be mature enough to "be in touch with their limitations, with their fragility, with their wounds". In a world in which everything drives us to achieve a practically impossible mental balance, this film dares to show the poetics that lie in the acceptance of abnormality, opting for eccentricity and lives lived on the fringe.

A rare beauty

Despite having the support of the Almodóvar brothers' production company behind it, it is still a miracle that Sirāt has managed to reach so many viewers. Inevitably, a film as challenging as this one has also generated hostility and disappointment; something that proves that we are not facing a predictable or easy to digest artwork.

Its spirit is not so different, after all, from that of some films by the avant-garde auteurs of the 1920s, who saw cinema not so much as a means of mass communication, but rather as a channel, capable of capturing in the eye of the camera the telluric, the ungraspable, the transcendental, projecting it all onto the screen. If you are interested in knowing more about this unusual production that is currently in theatres, don't wait to hear about it. Whatever your final experience might turn out to be, Sirāt can only be truly felt in person.