Sirat <img src="https://img.icons8.com/ios-glyphs/20/000000/star--v1.png"/><img src="https://img.icons8.com/ios-glyphs/20/000000/star--v1.png"/>

Sirat

Sirat is the fourth film by writer/director Oliver Laxe and it's a bit of a head scratcher, not just about what's going on, but also why? It stars the excellent Sergi López as Luis, a Spanish dad looking for his daughter in the raves of Morocco. Laxe apparently scoured music festivals and street performers' patches to cast the other characters in the film, and he's unearthed some nuggets here. Steffi (Stefania Gadda), Jade (Jade Oukid) and Tonin (Tonin Janvier) stand out, but all of the non-pros certainly feel like they might attend crusty raves in a desert.

In its favour, it certainly drops the shock bombs and some of the scenes are extremely tense (there's a bit of mountain road driving, for example, that tightens the knot). But for the most part, I found it noodly, pretentious and lacking cohesion. There were even a couple of scenes that were cut from the middle, allowed to drift away, and Luis's central motivation just disappears off a Moroccan cliff.

The significance of the title, a bridge between hell and paradise, thin as a hair, sharp as a blade, opens up some possible interpretations. I took it to refer to Luis's futile search and the sacrifices he's making on his quest. This dusty shit path is paved with good intentions, or something like that.

This actually might be a good drug film, probably weed, maybe acid, I wouldn't know. But I could imagine that some of the indulgence of the pacing and narrative might be forgiven if you were baked off your tits. A lot has been said about the soundtrack by Kangding Ray, and it's fine if doof-doof is your thing, but it's also so unrefined as to be almost amateurish.

The film is reminiscent of The Wages of Fear, and the non-actors feel like they could definitely have been extras in a Mad Max film. López does his best and is occasionally heart-breaking, but he's let down by a slight, wayward script and airy direction. This appears to be something of a polariser, so one man's meat, and all that. Others might dig it more than I did.

Sirat screens at UWA Somerville from Jan 19th to 25th as part of the Perth Festival.

See also: López is great in Harry, He's Here to Help (2000), directed by Dominik Moll. Henri-Georges Clouzot's The Wages of Fear (1953) clearly influenced some of the desert driving scenes in this.

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