sirât...

I went along to the Watershed again yesterday (it had been a few weeks since my last cinema outing!) to see Oliver Laxe’s film Sirât. I’d noticed that the film had been nominated for two Oscars (Best International Feature and Best Sound) and so thought ‘I’d give it a go’. I got to the cinema 15minutes before the show started and decided to check on Peter Bradshaw’s (from The Guardian) film review – as I often do – only to find that he’d given it a mere 2-star rating. Nevermind, I thought, I’m here now!
Set in the dusty mountains of southern Morocco, a father (Luis) and his son have arrived at a rave (miles from anywhere) searching for Mar - daughter and sister - who vanished months ago at one of these endless, sleepless parties. Hope is fading, but they push through and follow a group of ravers heading to one last party in the desert…
Well, although it wasn’t quite my kind of music, I can well understand why the film had been nominated for ‘Best Sound’ (Kangding Ray’s suitably rave-like soundtrack was intoxicating… and very loud!) but, after a while, as the story unfolded, I started to ask myself “is that it?”. I could imagine a group of drug-induced film executives sitting around a conference table and discussing what would make a suitable film… music, hippies, drugs, mountains, deserts, beaten-up buses and people dying? Really (I thought)??
I’m afraid I came out at the end of the film feeling somewhat underwhelmed (understatement!).
I don’t normally do this but, in the circumstances (and the fact I have little to say when it comes to any kind of assessment), I’ll leave you with Peter Bradshaw’s words: “…Well, the dual narrative possibilities and consequences of Mar’s discovery or non-discovery fade away into nothingness as the story disappears into the sand, as does the question of whether the hippies and Luis could conceivably learn from each other. In their shock and despair after the tumultuous events that follow, they take psychoactive substances and dance to electronic music thumping out of their speakers. The film’s doors of perception remain closed. Sirāt is a path to nowhere, an improvised spectacle in the Sahara; it is very impressive in the opening 10 minutes but valueless as it proceeds, and a pointless mirage of unearned emotion”.
You can’t win all the time (or am I just a boring old codger?!).