Director Óliver Laxe makes "extreme" films in search of introspection

"The film ['Sirat'] is dry, arid, sober. For me, it's not so much a question of whether or not it's bright or optimistic, but whether we can get the viewer to introspect," said the 43-year-old director in an interview with Lusa.

At Cinema Trindade, in Porto, where he presented some sessions of the film, which won awards from the jury in the official section of the Cannes Film Festival, Laxe detailed the creative process that leads him to create "extreme" works.

'Sirat', the successor to the Cannes-award-winning 'What Burns' (2019), follows the journey of a father and son who search for their daughter and sister, Mar, who disappeared in a part of the Moroccan desert where electronic music raves are rife.

Under this soundtrack, Laxe superimposes images that demonstrate the aridity of the story itself, a journey that he claims resembles epic narratives, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh or King Arthur's journeys in search of the Holy Grail.

At this desert party, the dystopian idea of the end of the world clashes with a "hard" story that, says the Paris-born Spaniard, seeks to bring viewers closer "to themselves."

"It's a subtle way, the epic, of replacing the metaphysical. The epic adventure, the 'western,' the genre, is my way of reaching a certain audience in a subtle way, within the external epic rather than the internal one. [...] I wanted the viewer to look within. I knew I was making a tough film. My intention was to care for the viewer. But I didn't know I would stir things up so much, go so deep," he explains.

With this intention, he had no "desire to make anyone suffer", especially because it was difficult for him to "write and edit the film's toughest sequences", but he decided to 'force' this path to portray and criticize a "very thanatophobic society", that is, one with an extreme fear of death.

"We escape death, pain, anguish. We are more afraid. For me, it's important to confront death, to meditate on it. [...] My life question is 'will I die with dignity?' And the characters in this film, do they die with dignity? I would say yes. In rave culture, there is nothing more transcendental than dying in an act of service on a dance floor," he says.

For Óliver Laxe, "a film must transcend the author, surpass him", and 'Sirat' is, for some, a sign of hope and for others of despair, as can be read in the many reviews of a work already tipped for an Oscar nomination.

"I had more of a sense of hope. Of realism, yes, but of continuing on the path. Reality is harsh, but we have faith that the path leads us to a safe haven. And we have to look within," he adds.

Confrontation and meditation on death characterize much of Laxe's discourse and work, as he doesn't film so that this cinema "is understood, but felt," and says he doesn't understand more moralistic approaches to these deaths on screen.

"But you watch television, what's going on in the world these days?" he asks.

With a great interest and identification with rave culture, the Galician notes that, in this case, "it's not about the party, but about the journey", and even with "a toxic and escapist side, like Peter Pan, of not wanting to grow up", as he says exists "in all dimensions of society", he realizes that he can deal better with the "wound" and the inner resolution.

"I start from the premise that we're all wounded. Your friends are wounded and don't know it. [...] We Europeans have an idealized image of ourselves as balanced people. In Portugal, we're more grounded, humble, a society where life makes you humble," he comments.

The image of purgatory, of a "descent into hell" on the way to paradise, as the word 'sirat' symbolizes in the Muslim religion, of a path through hell to reach heaven, is another of the film's strong associations.

"I'm interested in that worldly type, like many of us, who didn't do the work on time, and life, when you don't do it, forces you to do the work through the crisis. That's the mechanism of life," he reflects.

In the production of the film, he read "many stories from parents who lost their children."

"The transmission of wisdom, the level of acceptance and detachment they experienced through the death of a child, something atrocious, nameless, is something very noble and dignified. It's extreme to lose a child, but I believe it's a good way to prepare ourselves, to be aware that we are always one step away from the abyss, and we must meditate on death," he says.

Alongside a more philosophical and existential reflection on cinema, the creative process is marked, from the outset, by being "addicted to the image."

"I'm like a fisherman. They tell me there are fish there, and those fish are a new image bank, and off we go. These images are alive, they penetrate you, they want to exist and catch you. We are at their mercy. [...] I really experience the pleasure of making certain images," he explains.

In these fascinations, filming in Porto, for example, would leave him "enchanted", by the "architecture and succession of places", says the director of 'Sirat', released Thursday in Portugal, in whose filmography the landscape takes on the role of a character.

Laxe, 43, has won awards at Cannes for all his films - in 2010, with the FIPRESCI Prize for 'Todos vosotros sois capitanes', in 2016 at Critics' Week, for 'Mimosas', and then by the jury of the Un certain regard section, for 'O que arde', until 'Sirat', now in the official section.

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