So, I ended up finally watching Sirāt this week as part of my university's film society. Anyway, my friend and I were quite mystified by the praise heaped upon it. It immediately seemed like a very cheap film (full of shock and sometimes impressive spectacle but lacking in true thematic cohesion). So, I did what I usually do whenever I see a film and wrote up some ramblings about it on my Letterboxd. I've posted my "review" (but it's really more of a log primarily for myself) below, because I haven't really seen many of the positive reviews address the potential issues I identified, and regardless, I'd be very curious to hear other people's perspectives on the film:

"The Wages of Fear (Gaspar Noé Remix)

I can't help but feel the acclaim for this film is because it is what feels like yet another calculatedly ambiguous film (where some ideas/themes are touched on but never developed into a thesis but the overall ambiguity of the piece allows critics/viewers to project onto it and thus elevate its meaning, which is a cheap way for artists to gain acclaim without ever risking a true thesis).

Aside from the script being full of contrivances and absurdity in the last act (and very unearned and emotionally manipulative shocks that are just noisy spectacles, since the major one just serves to shock and offer "big emotion" with massive trauma rather than anything generative), the major issue here for me actually lies in something I'd usually praise: the lack of backstory or explicit characterisation as well as context. Whereas in other films we receive enough information about characters based on their actions, here the film is largely rendered unreadable to me because we simply don't understand these characters or how the central figure of the father changes (we know that he, like every character here, is a moron, but he seems quite loving and caring, so why has he taken his son to an unstable war zone, and is he trying to find his daughter because he has been a bad father in the past or because he is just extremely worried for her or because he thinks the world is ending and wishes to reconnect before time is up or because he is overly protective/fixated, and where is the mother? How long have they been searching for the daughter?). He's simply a non-entity that denies the themes any ability to develop. Also, are we meant to see the ravers as complete idiots or likeable dreamers (either way, I do appreciate the final act exposing the faux-transcendence they attempt to espouse)? There's a difference between nuanced characterisation and just unclear sketching. The vague military conflict creates similar problems: is this a regional conflict? Has this been going on for a long time? I like how its scope and causes are ambiguous, but since we never really get any sense about its nature, we are also denied the proper ability to justifiably draw any readings from how the characters respond or don't respond to it (the characters seem casual about it, but they are also ravers detached from reality, so is it that they are irresponsible or justified to be wary or tired of the soldiers?). Also, the film feels far too out of time (with very few of the contextual causes of such problematic or short-sighted behaviour being properly identified or explored, which seems pretty important for a film looking at human nature). The questions just go on and on...

Yes, the sound design and score/soundtrack are stunning (the most stripped-back techno that draws out both transcendent and chthonic qualities to it, the pulses being either like mantras of Buddhism or something malevolent), and there are undoubtedly some interesting ideas here, but none of them are ever explored in satisfying or comprehensive detail (they're usually introduced and then dropped, with each of the acts introducing rather distinct themes but never offering an interplay between them). Similarly, whilst there are some incredible images and moments of montage, especially towards the start (as well as a sometimes great understanding of editing techniques, such as that one slow dissolve of Luis into the dark landscape), there's also many superfluous shots and scenes as well as some very boringly blocked shots (where there isn't nearly as much being drawn out symbolically from a scene as there could be).

I left this feeling a bit miserable and frustrated (although I did laugh quite a bit from its mounting absurdity and slapdash construction). I've crawled through the durst, but aside from occasional moments of purely emotional, primal transcendence, what am I meant to be getting from this misery?"

Also, I don't want to shamelessly plug my profile, but if you did find any value in this post, then please feel free to follow my profile (I'm also always very keen to follow more people on Letterboxd, particularly people from subs such as this who enjoy and preserve in-depth discussions about art): https://letterboxd.com/brighton\_g/

I agree with the miserable and frustrated feeling, much as I feel I took a lot more from this than you did.

I don’t think more explicit character backstories are definitely necessary here, I think all of these people being lost to some degree works with the ambiguity of how they came to be in this position.

Questions about appreciating your life and family, spirituality, religion, war, community, ‘losing yourself’ itself all feel like they were meant to converge in some way, and, for me, they just never did.

I have no idea how much that’s down to the film or my inability to read it, but it does seem like a lot of people felt similarly, even if they felt the emotional and artistic impacts of many of the key moments.

I think that this film makes much more sense if you're familiar with Islam and at least some basic concepts of this religion.

Sirat is a kind of bridge to Heaven, which will either be really easy or impossible to cross, depending on the person's life. It was shown in the minefield metaphor by the end.

I believe the film also explores the topics of martyrdom and letting go of this world and the material, physical and mundane.

Even though Oliver Laxe seems to be generally labeled as a douche, I liked the film and felt its message, even though I don't generally, a hundred percent agree with it. It was bold and deep enough.
It's definitely not about ravers being idiots.

Followed you on LB.

Yeah great set up and soundtrack but by the end it all fell apart. It seems they were winging it with the script or lack of script. Love me some obscure thematic filmmaking but I'll go rewatch aftersun a true masterpiece than this overhyped "rave" movie

The issue is I can't really convince you. Because that's the thing with leaving things open, legitimately you can say "oh it's empty" or "it adds so much to it because it allows you to add something beautiful from the pieces that are there"

And that's what I'm left with. I can't totally explain it but I found this movie very beautiful and transcendental, and because it is quite ambiguous I can only gesture at why.

Basically in my opinion you have to be ok with metaphor. The things happening in the film aren't totally "real" in a sense.

So take the military action. That's basically to give you a feeling of the end of the world, and that even if the ravers did quit they wouldn't be going back to a regular safe life.

The daughter and the son is their to show that the father while loving is actually missing something. His quest is about control and saying "I need to have my daughter and choose what she does" and the journey basically shows him encounter people who lose control and don't allow themselves to be under that control.

And another thing he encounters is he is a bit absent minded and that causes a tragedy. The ravers probably lose control too much and might need some sense of going the other way.

Which seems like a contradiction, but it's actually what the title seems to suggest. That you need to find this bridge in the middle of the two, that is small and hard to find.

Anyway that's probably me expanding something I felt more in the film and it's a little all over the place, but I felt the beauty of the film and it stayed with me more than I thought it would considering on the surface it does seem like a wages of fear/sorcerer riff

My main takeaway from your review is that it seems you didn’t really meet the movie where it is at. You seemed to have come into the film with a lot expectations about what films are supposed to be and need to do for you to appreciate them.

Personally, I saw the film as being, foremost, a unique, sensorial exploration of viscerality and anxiety that also features a authentically-vibed portrayal of a subculture. It’s not trying to tie a bow around a neatly packaged, formulaic checklist. It’s raw, it’s gritty, it’s rave. Admittedly, I am closely adjacent to the subculture featured in the film, so I had a more personal connection to it.

If you’ve never tripped while raving illegally, especially in a less than hospitable environment, there’s a certain inexplicable quality to the film that will not seem as potent than if you have.

i think its a good movie. I didn't feel the ending was portraying the transcendence as faux in any way. I felt the father and the ravers were both looking for something that couldn't be rationally grasped, and that even after life has given you so much to make you doubt, you still have faith - that's how I read the sequence near the end when they have to reach the hill/small mountain. In the ending, you have all these different people together, only sharing their (still unknown) destination, i found it a beautiful metaphor for life, idk. also i swear there were some visual analogies between rave culture and islam (e.g. the black stereo surround vs the kaba) that would reinforce this reading

I was recommended Sirat off the back of its soundtrack and setting. Whilst it delivered those vibes in spades, I found the second half challenging and difficult to interpret.

Without giving anything away, I found the ending pretty explicit. How and why do people persevere through hardship? whether that’s losing a limb, a friend, a family member, or watching the world descend into all-out war? I think there are myriad answers, including fear of the alternative to life, or the sheer chaos forcing you to take things at face value. What Sirat posits, in my opinion, is that in the connection left behind by those painful moments, there is growth and beauty, and that is what makes us who we are.

It’s a devastingly beautiful message that the film relays through its narrative rather than directly through its characters, which makes it all the more powerful because you feel it. As Jade says about techno, "You don't listen to it; you feel it. You move with it."

All this to say, I do see where you’re coming from. It’s not an immediately accessible text, but it certainly rewards reflection.

Yeah Kangding Ray's the shit.

Your ramblings reminded me of how some sci-fi films conjure up a great intrigue, around some introduced planet/race/culture, and that being so appealing to fans that they need more, so they turn to extended universe / fan fiction content. Make of that what you will.

My rambling after seeing the movie:

>More about finding refuge (in oneself, in art, in community) between the moments where life throws crazy curve balls at you. To that end, it is kinda about raves, in a very indirect way.

the director Oliver Laxe gave many many interviews where he's more than happy to overexplain the themes, I recommend checking a few out. sometimes he can be annoying but it did give
me a deeper appreciation of what he was going for.

if you've ever known someone who turned into a pretend philosophy professor after years of years of psychedelics, you'll recognize his type. it cracked me up that, since they just had actual raves going on as background ambience, between setups and at the end of the day he would just go join the rave lol

I find this techno dj's view of the film very illuminating

https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueFilm/comments/1o32cdf/perspective\_on\_sir%C4%81t\_2025\_from\_a\_techno\_dj/

I also found its seemingly ramshackle or approach exhilarating: unlike most films, it does not offer us the consolation of narrative or a character arc. It just puts on a path with some lost pilgrims, and disorients us by highlighting the illusions of rational understanding, direction and control.

I appreciated this film much more after watching and reading some interviews with Laxe. I enjoyed it without knowing the sirat/bridge theme but having that context, and seeing the mini-doc on the sound design, made me love it.