Sirât

 

Director Oliver Laxe

Laxe receiving Jury Prize at Cannes

director on the set

SIRÂT             B                                                                                                                     France  (115 mi)  2025  d: Oliver Laxe

Life is a path that has turns; it has alleys on both sides.  Life shakes you; it doesn’t knock at the door.  It appears, suddenly shakes you, and asks, “Who are you?”                                              —Oliver Laxe

MAD MAX meets LOST HIGHWAY in this apocalyptic scenario out in the desert, with a touch of Gus Van Sant’s GERRY (2002) and Henri-Georges Clouzot’s The Wages of Fear (Le Salaire de la Peur) (1953) thrown in just for good measure.  For anyone who’s seen Alexandre Koberidze’s Dry Leaf (2025) or Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another (2025), the story is essentially the same, a father seeking his missing daughter, though the journey couldn’t be more radically different.  Using a style that resembles Gaspar Noé, where the adrenaline-pumping, electric techno beat drives the entire film, written by French experimental composer Kangding Ray (aka David Letellier), offering a canvas of EDM sound that matches the vast emptiness of the Moroccan landscapes where the Atlas Mountains meet the Sahara Desert (though predominately shot in the Aragón region of Spain), a place where, preposterously enough, a dance rave is happening out in the middle of the desert, an open-air experience that pulsates with music and frenetic movement, sort of a mix between Coachella and Burning Man, turning into an endless and sleepless party.  Using long-held scenes, designed to be a state-of-the-art theater experience, where sound and image gradually blur, the rhythm of the music and the ecstatic movements of the ravers create an atmosphere that feels almost meditative, like a pilgrimage to Mecca, where viewers are lured into this hypnotic trance, yet it’s remarkable how everyone seems to disappear completely in their own physical movement, isolated, and yet connected, laying a subtle parallel with life itself, as we all follow our own path, but still share a common reality.  In this scenario, we find Luis (Sergi López, best-known as the sadistic army captain in Guillermo del Toro’s PAN’S LABYRINTH in 2006), his young son Esteban (Bruno Núñez Arjona), and their dog Pipa mingling with the crowd and handing out flyers with his missing daughter Mar’s photo asking if anyone’s seen her, as she vanished months ago at one of these staged raves, SIRÂT by Oliver LAXE - Clip 1 YouTube (2:36).  Retracing her steps, they follow the music scene, going from event to event in hopes they’ll run into her, where people are always cordial, but no one’s seen her.  There is an ambiguity and lack of specificity that feels intentional, along with undeveloped, barely sketched characters who feel somehow less important than the blend of boldly high-powered music and equally imposing landscapes.  In the midst of this all-night party scene, with cars, trucks, and campers parked nearby in what looks like the middle of nowhere, things take a darkened turn when the military shows up and shuts the party down, evacuating everyone while transporting heavy guns through the desert, creating a long convoy of vehicles in what looks like the only way out, but in a sudden shift of tone, two of the vehicles turn away and head off into the desert, with Luis instinctively following them, knowing they are heading for the next rave further south in the desert.  This act of defiance makes more sense when we hear radio reports of armed conflict breaking out, a war that threatens their freedom, which can be quickly stripped away in an instant, where music, cinema, and even art can all be forbidden, things we routinely take for granted.  This sets the stage for an alarming apocalyptic tone, as what initially appears to be an ode to youth is transformed into an anthem for freedom, where these speeding trucks in the middle of the desert are really all about preserving their freedoms.  It’s an eerie atmosphere, doused in the pounding techno music and filtered through an awareness of the catastrophe of our present, adding a youthful presence to what may as well be a march into oblivion. 

From the maker of Fire Will Come (O que arde) (2019), which was an audaciously original, near wordless film shot on Super 16mm, with an extraordinary sound design that mixes music with natural and man-made sounds, sometimes indistinguishably, while MIMOSAS (2016) was also a landscape study shot in Morocco, this is a visual spectacle shot on 16mm by longtime Laxe cinematographer Mauro Herce, winner of the Cannes Jury Prize (3rd place), and while operating more on a metaphysical level, the result is terrifying.  The dominant force is the pounding, bass-driven musical soundtrack, SIRÂT | Soundtrack, which literally overwhelms viewers with the crowded frenzy of the animated dance movements, with huge speakers set up, like an enormous altar in front of a gigantic rock face, with the sun rising from the orange-colored sandstone cliffs, creating an immersive multisensory experience for an audacious romp into the unknown.  A rebellious road trip of epic proportions, our father and son team join forces with punkish rave regulars Jade Oukid as the androgynous-looking Jade with a face tattoo, Stefania Gadda as the worldly Earth mother Stef, Joshua Liam Henderson as the spiked-hair Josh, Tonin Janvier as peg-legged Tonin, and Richard Bellamy as heavily tatted, one-handed Bigui with an arm stump, a group of nomadic outcasts who are psychotropic drug enthusiasts, remnants from a society that had no use for them and spit them out.  Matched by the grandiose size of two jigged-up, off-road vehicles, which can crawl just as easily up steep, rock-filled mountain inclines and windswept desert terrains, but Luis has a smaller, old beat-up Citroën van, not really designed for such a harrowing journey, creating an additional hardship for the entire group, as they’re always lagging behind, never exactly sure if they can make it, forcing them to come together as a group, working in unison for the same common goal.  With enormous pressure placed on each of the individuals, the journey is fraught with difficulties, always on the verge of their own demise, as the desert becomes a main character in ways we don’t expect, infused with a vast emptiness, where the desolate landscapes have an almost tangible intensity, making it difficult to contend with sunlight, dust, and extreme heat, where the burning air is suffocating, literally overwhelming viewers with a feeling of immense dread, reminiscent of Erich von Stroheim’s Greed (1924).  Sirât, according to the Islamic Koran, is a suspension bridge that links hell with paradise, described “as thin as a hair and as sharp as a knife,” where only the righteous will be able to cross the bridge, while the unjust will fall into eternal darkness, with much of this film feeling like the characters are stuck in purgatory in search of the promise of a road that will lead them out of the desert without being detected by the military.  None of them have any idea where they are, existing in a no man’s land, thwarting all expectations by avoiding main roads, as the journey becomes both a physical and spiritual reckoning somewhere between life and death, memory and myth, always accompanied by an overwhelming presence of grief.  This is intentionally provocative cinema, designed for extreme visceral reactions, while continually catching viewers off guard.  Blending professional and non-professional actors, this adds a raw authenticity, where much of this feels like a hallucinatory experience, finding themselves continually stuck in limbo in an unforgiving landscape, offering no shelter or shade, where catastrophe strikes with increasing regularity.   

Co-written by Laxe and Argentine screenwriter Santiago Fillol, shrouded with mystery and abstraction, this is an existential meditation on getting lost, a spiritual and physical odyssey where all exits out have failed, finding themselves on a relentless way of no return, but the journey only grows more harrowing, with the desert suggesting freedom is a mirage, as things only grow more perilous, having a similar futuristic vibe with Alfonso Cuarón’s apocalyptic, end of the world scenario in Children of Men (2006).  Radio broadcast reports that a distant World War III-like global conflict is taking place, making the world they left behind in extreme peril, seemingly having no present or future, living in the shadow of unseen threats, while at the same time they are besieged with an everpresent mortal danger, forced to climb perilous cliffs, where one wrong move can mean plunging to their death, running dangerously low on food and fuel, surrounded by one pitfall after another, feeling more like a nightmarish dream scenario, yet this is their hellish Terra incognita reality that they’ve inadvertently wandered into, where they’re rapidly falling into the deadly quicksand-like hazards of a parallel world.  An exploration of contemporary indifference, these characters do not seem to care or want to listen to news from the “outside world,” which has rejected them their entire lives, damaged beyond belief, so creating their own alternative lifestyle is what matters, exemplified by this group of outcast ravers who are running away and trying to forget their problems, as the world is not important to them anymore, yet the more this small community of only a few stragglers is challenged, hopelessness inevitably seeps in.  An overwhelming sense of dread and an all-consuming fatalism affects both participants and viewers alike, engulfed in a doomsday scenario, with Bigui at one point asking Tonin, “Is this how the world is going to end?”  His reply is equally shocking, “It’s been the end of the world for a long time.”  The film marks a significant shift in Laxe's filmography, delving into a more political and radical narrative than his previous works.  As we watch tragedy after tragedy unfold in Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine, Syria, Kashmir, Afghanistan, Mynamar, and other places, the film emerges from an intense search for freedom in places it doesn’t exist, where evacuation becomes the norm, as entire displaced communities coalesce around borders, mixing religions, cultures, and languages, altering the look of society as we know it, more dispersed and disoriented, mirroring the refugee crisis and the growing displacement of millions of people, recalling Christian Petzold’s 2018 Top Ten List #3 Transit (2018), which is a reflection of contemporary anxieties, the plight of the displaced, and the search for sanctuary in a world actively hostile to it.  Exploring the consequences of apathy, Laxe has created a metaphor for the last safe refuge left on earth, where they can still live a rebellious and carefree lifestyle, with no one rendering judgments, yet this film strips away that last safe place, questioning where detachment from the world leads you, imagining just what’s left in the end.  The film feels aggressively one note, infused with a suffocating nihilism mirrored by the continuous beige color of the rocks and desert sand literally surrounding us in all directions.  With no backstory provided to suggest how we arrived at this point, maybe it doesn’t matter, as there’s a slow realization that nothing will ever be the same again.  This is a European counterpoint to Paul Thomas Anderson’s dystopian America in One Battle After Another (2025), where perhaps both filmmakers are trying to tell us is that we’ve already arrived at a point of no return. 

Cabo Negro

 

Writer/director Abdellah Taïa

CABO NEGRO           B                                                                                                         France  Morocco  (76 mi)  2024  d: Abdellah Taïa

This has a kind of Waiting for Godot vibe, as two young queer students from Casablanca, best friends Soundouss and Jaâfar (Oumaïma Barid and Youness Beyej), arrive at a luxury villa in Cabo Negro, a beachside community in northern Morocco, while awaiting the arrival of an older American from New York, Jonathan, who is renting the villa for the month of August and lent them the keys, yet never arrives.  While there are indications Jonathan and Jaâfar are former lovers, Soundouss is also excited about the arrival of her girlfriend Soumaya who remained behind in Casablanca, sending her inflamed messages, where expectations are high that they will spend a carefree month in the sun, swimming on the beach, living a comfortable life, where the idyllic setting offers a reprieve from surrounding social and political upheavals.  This beautiful locale has the makings of your typical Éric Rohmer film, who set many of his films along the sunny shores of summer beach holidays, where the sensual atmosphere and youthful carefree vibe became a staple of French cinema, though the Moroccan director has chosen an altogether different path, choosing a minimalist, near documentary approach with quiet observation, and while the film’s languid sensuality is undeniable, it’s difficult to comprehend the motivations behind the character’s actions.  Born in Salé just outside Rabat, Abdellah Taïa is the first Moroccan writer to live openly and unapologetically gay, eloquently writing a coming out confession to his family (Homosexuality Explained to My Mother), publishing several novels ('A Country for Dying' Review: A Fresco of Departures, Real ...), while currently living in Paris and writing in French, where any notion of home remains elusive, as back home he is viewed as a “traitor,” with Morocco’s biggest-selling newspaper denouncing him, while also attacked by other Moroccan writers, journalists, and politicians, with many suggesting he should be stoned.  Realizing at an early age that words were used to denounce the LGBTQ community, making them feel dirty and despised, where families often cast out these children as misfits from society, and for that reason he is wary of how language is used to portray gay people, who remain extremely vulnerable to acts of violence, as gays are routinely demonized as evil by religious and political entities, making them ashamed of who they are.  There’s an expression from the American South, “Watch the dog that carries the bone,” in other words watch the messenger.  Growing up, the director felt he was all alone, with no one in the world able to identify what he was going through, leaving him isolated and alone, where he had to navigate his way through troubled waters in a society that offers no refuge, only hateful rejection.  Offering a very low-key sense of what it is like to be queer in Morocco, and still be a practicing Muslim, his goal is to make cinema accessible to those same LGBTQ youth growing up today, offering them inclusive avenues they may not have felt or known about, yet it’s clear this is a man on a mission.  Taïa was present at the screening and he’s an unusually gifted speaker, highly intelligent and emotionally compelling, where his command of language in both mediums is thought-provoking.

Largely due to the director’s mistrust for how language can misconstrue reality, this is more of a moody, atmospheric film filled with deeper meaning, with very little dialogue and long silent pauses, where the scale of the film remains small, and the plot purposefully oblique, allowing viewers to recognize other aspects of storytelling, where that initial euphoria turns mysteriously dark and melancholic, growing more circumspect as Jonathan avoids all attempts at contact, refusing to answer his phone, and remains completely out of touch, while Soumaya has similarly distanced herself from Soundouss, leaving her down in the dumps.  This strange turn of events leaves them both perplexed and dismayed, suddenly finding themselves unable to pay the rent or buy food, as if stranded on an island with no provisions, yet rather than return home they decide to stay and make the best of it, walking to the beach each day, soaking up the sun, and just enjoying the simple pleasures of living.  But Taïa throws in a few wrinkles we haven’t seen before, as hiding in the forested path to the ocean is a group of Africans awaiting their chance to be smuggled across the sea into Europe, where direct eye contact is made, but no words are actually spoken.  Similarly, when a lone stranger follows them, rather than turn him away, they actually offer him food and a safe place to sleep for a night, discovering he’s just been released from 3-years in prison for a crime he never committed.  When they run out of food, they both stand along a wall at night waiting to be picked up by random strangers for paid sexual hookups, a social realist reflection of early Fellini films, expressing a harsh reality that exists side-by-side with their upscale accommodations.  Making things even more disruptive, the villa owner arrives unannounced in an angry mood, where he’s not pleased to see they are not Jonathan, who apparently has a history of renting the villa each summer.  Nonetheless, they treat him with respect, offer him sweetened tea the way he likes, but he’s aloof and standoffish with them, believing they are misfits and undesirables, eventually giving them an ultimatum to leave, but only after he orders Soundouss into one of the empty rooms where he rapes her, giving them three more days, which is like a dark cloud hanging over their heads.  This beguiling feature is a clever examination of upended expectations, homophobia and sex tourism, and an ambiguously sexy vacation thriller, reckoning with queerness within the prism of Arabic and Muslim culture, as Taïa adds artistic rigor to confront age-old beliefs while maintaining a compassionate gaze for all his characters, where the end result displays an unexpected intensity.  

As Jaâfar is paying respects to his father’s nearby grave, another man, Mounir (Julian Compan), runs into him asking for help, as he’s searching for his grandmother’s grave, but he’s French and can’t read Arabic.  He’s invited back to the villa afterwards, where we learn he was rejected by his family for being gay, and despite his grandmother’s prolonged illness, they wouldn’t allow him to see her before she died.  Yet his grandmother was everything to him, as she fully embraced who he was with no reservations, and made him feel loved.  This heartrending story allows the viewing audience to understand the true meaning of the word “tolerance.”  It’s important to understand the director’s motives here, as he’s targeting the LGBTQ youth in Morocco who have no desire to run away to Los Angeles to find freedom, but want to find a way to live in their own country, as difficult as that may seem under strict Islamic laws that view homosexuality as a punishable offense that may lead to prison terms or even death (The Islamic State's Views on Homosexuality).  Even in this idyllic setting, these kids need to navigate their way through a difficult path, as Morocco is no longer the gay and lesbian paradise of the 1970’s, home to Jean Genet (and William S. Burroughs in the 50’s) and a regular destination of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, but is a country that criminalizes and persecutes the LGBTQ community, and while disheartened, they don’t lose faith or change their values to reflect the harshness inflicted upon them.  Instead they freely reach out to others, making a celebratory feast of couscous and invite a group of African exiles awaiting safe passage, people who would never be invited into a villa like this, as it caters to a wealthy white elite with plenty of money to spread around.  These communal experiences are the heart of the film, like dancing with strangers, as they offer ways to live their lives freely accepting the differences in others, who are nonetheless embraced, with no lectures or self-absorbed tirades to make themselves feel good, but simply because it’s the right thing to do, creating a world filled with fleeting interactions and temporary connections, embracing the cultural Moroccan messages without the divisive rhetoric.  Taïa got the idea for the film by following an Instagram account of two young gay Moroccans, only to notice that over time the girl goes mysteriously missing, yet he notices they exhibit powerful signs of a vibrant new iGeneration trying to express themselves, despite the aggressive government response of denunciation, living for the moment day by day with a sense of longing and hope, yet openly thriving outside established rules.  This gave him the framework for a story, where he could add his own fictional embellishments, creating LGBTQ protagonists whose voices blend together forming a unique stream-of-conscious mix, deciding they can no longer wait for societies to change, instead creating a safe sanctuary through their own bonds of solidarity amongst themselves, sharing meals and their own loving experiences, offering a sense of grace even while there are turbulent forces around them fomenting social and political violence.