Clarity has a bad reputation. A philosopher (we won't say the name because it was too obscure) forced himself to obscure his texts if he saw that they were understood too well. He did it out of vanity (like almost everything in this life) and because, deep down, he was convinced that misleading the reader is one of the best ways to be interesting and come up with new ideas that are not even yours. It happens with oracles. It is in their nature to leave the most basic sense to interpretation (usually by experts or priests). Author's cinema (or oracular) sometimes experiences something similar. In its vocation to discuss the structure and meaning of the narrative itself, sometimes it simply lets go. It's not depth, it's laziness.
For all these reasons, the effort of a director like Oliver Laxe, committed film by film to refining the language, bringing it closer to the viewer, making it transparent, clean, and clear, is appreciated and exciting for being so far from imposture and so thorough in its foundations. The latest work by the director of Fire Will Come is, in its own way, a culmination. The daring or radical proposal of Sirat (the sharp path like a blade that leads to paradise) consists not so much in going as far as possible but, on the contrary, very close. It is about stripping away artifices and replicating from the deepest place the oldest and most recognizable travel or chivalry stories, which are always outward, towards imaginary and exotic countries, to end up being a detailed description of the same soul, of what's inside. In its own way, it is a film that works on the archetype of genre cinema to claim a place as perfectly unique as it is indeed shared. It is a journey, as the filmmaker himself likes to say, physical, but, without overwhelming, metaphysical. But always from the utmost clarity. In fact, despite the darkness of the subject matter, it is basically a healing journey, towards the light.
The story is about a father (superb in his sincerity Sergi López) and a son searching for the former's daughter and the latter's sister. Mar disappeared months ago at a party or rave without dawn. The two travel to where techno music gatherings without time are held and ask around. And so on until one day, in the middle of a mythical and unnamed desert, they join a group of desperate ravers in search of the ultimate party. Along the way, tragedy will unfold, and they all must learn to find mercy, the light from before, amidst the deepest, suffocating, and painful drama.
Sirat moves across the screen like a provocation in its hypnotic and explosive sincerity. What is seen is a landscape populated by seemingly strange beings, out of this world. The ravers are authentic outcast Martians to the family man, and he occupies the place of the absurd in a world without recognizable rules at first sight for the former. But gradually, as something as basic as pain becomes present, recognition emerges. The key, in fact, lies there, in recognizing oneself; in recognizing the archetypal form of one's own common story and understanding that the subject we label as different for being, for example, an immigrant actually responds to the same motivations as oneself. We are them. The director likes to say that, in the polarized and boundary world we live in, this is his most political film. He says it and regrets it at the possibility of a headline ruining everything. "In truth," he asserts from the height of his long hair and his slow accent, "nothing is more political than poetry." And we believe him.
The result is a work that moves and, in its less frivolous sense, entertains (not distracts) almost shamelessly. Even to the point of explosion if necessary. Sirat, and in this, the perfectly graded music from explosion to pause has a lot to do with it, absorbs, magnetizes, and empties the gaze of affectations. Sirat is reminiscent of The Searchers with the same clarity that it brings to mind Stalker, The Wages of Fear or, why not, Mad Max. A French journalist suggested Mad Lax and we'll keep it. Definitely, Laxe's cinema keeps growing. Towards the light.