Oliver Laxe’s "Sirat" takes the audience on an epic journey across the Morroccan landscape in the company of ravers and a father looking for his daughter.
I first heard of the film "Sirat" at the Sarajevo Film Festival in August, where people were whispering about how good it was and queuing up to secure tickets. European (or non-European) interpretations of Sufism has never really been my thing so I wasn’t tempted. I have not gone past the 15-minute mark of the film "Bab’aziz" although friends have been telling me to give it another try for decades. All this to say that I am a Sufi metaphor skeptic. However, when a ticket for Oliver Laxe’s "Sirat" at the Filmekimi festival reached me through almost a mystical journey, I decided to go and never has a film felt more like a pilgrimage.
If you have heard anything about Laxe’s film, you will have heard that it is very difficult to talk about it without giving any spoilers. The poster shows Mediterranean-looking people stranded in the desert, and the descriptions of the film inform us that it is about a father looking for his daughter, who might be at a rave in Morocco.
The film starts with the meaning of the word "sirat" written on the screen: a bridge between heaven and hell. However, observant Muslims will also know – I was at a cinema in a part of town famous for its drinking holes and many members of the audience had already had one or two before the screening – that "sirat" literally means "path." "Sirati mustaqim" ("the straight path") is a phrase we repeat at least five times a day. Having put the audience in a Muslim frame of mind with this introduction, the film then opens with red stone mountains that look like a giant wall in the desert. Having recently rewatched "2001: A Space Odyssey," the scene reminds me of the initial setting of the film, the primeval plane that our less developed ancestors lived in.
Opening "Sirat" with this striking image, Laxe then shows us some men who, as it were, build the first temple, stone by black stone. But wait, those black stones are in fact parts of a sound system and when the men have finally built it, you know it’s going to give a tremendous sound. And so it does. And when you build it, they will come. Indeed, in the next scene, the pilgrims are all there; they have heard the sound and assembled.
For a while, we are in the midst of a rave in Morocco, entranced Europeans forgetting their worries, getting in touch with something primeval, something transcendent. It is not possible to see a scene of a rave and not think of the Israeli music festival that happened right next to Gaza’s concentration camp walls in 2023. In the film’s context you wonder, how could the Moroccans, who are living through their own political and financial troubles, be responding to a rave taking place in their backyard? The film delivers on this score because it is not much later that we see that there’s a "crisis" going on, and there are refugees moving across the country while the white people are having their fun. And just as you are filled with these feelings, you spot a raver who is wearing a keffiyeh. As you’re wondering if he is an ally or being performative, the dance continues, and some of the ravers come up to the black blocks of the sound system; the camera zooms in on the little metal cross in the middle of the sound brick.
Laxe keeps doing several things at once in any given scene throughout the film, and the viewer is subjected to a sensory and emotional overload. Everyone will naturally come to it with their own background and baggage. In one scene, just as the observant Muslims must be making the rave-pilgrimage comparison in their head, Laxe actually has one of the characters enter a square mud hut in the desert, drawn to it by sounds. As she enters this "square," there is a smaller square inside, a TV set, with the Kabaa channel turned on. She looks at it mesmerized for a couple of minutes, as the audience is treated to a couple of verses from the Surah Maryam.
Then we slowly move onto the plot of the film, as advertised, a man looking for his daughter. It turns out he is not alone; he has brought along his young son and dog. The dog, as in all films, is a relief, because the father goes out in the night to ask stoned and tired ravers if they have seen his daughter while the son cuddles in the car with the faithful pet. The search comes to an abrupt end when the military arrive, saying that they have to evacuate the place because of the state of emergency. It is quite a reversal of roles as Moroccans force Europeans to get in the vans and leave.
A group of hardened ravers, however, takes matters into their own hands and gets "off road" to head to another rave. In a desperate attempt, the dad decides to follow the vans, although the seasoned desert ravers warn him that his car isn’t up to the journey. Just how unprepared he is for the rough terrain is the story of the second half of the team. The two big vans and the car travel through the plains, rivers and mountains of Morocco, now and then crossing paths with refugee and military convoys. So, as we get to know more about these "privileged" Europeans – Laxe has a very soft and concise way of letting us into their inner worlds, including a puppet show – we also get a sense of the country they have come "to find themselves in."
Having put us in a Quranic mindset, this road to the "promised next rave" often feels like the journey of Moses with Hidhr, the latter telling the prophet that he will not be able to bear the scenes he will see if he accompanies him. Laxe indeed punches us several times in the gut, and tells us, in a jaw-dropping scene, that it is only the sirati mustaqim, the straight path, literal and metaphorical, that will ensure a safe journey. However, even when the perilous part of the journey is overcome, to truly come home, Laxe reminds us in the final scene, one needs community, a community that encompasses a much wider section of humanity.
