The Spanish-directed film Sirât is a parable for our world right now, or at least for Europe. It takes place in Morocco, which to Europeans (and westerners in general) is the middle-east, foreing, the Other, but so close. The characters are a mix of Spanish, French, British, and one, Biguí, might be Mexican or South American.
A Spanish father and his son are looking for their daughter/sister who seems to have vanished and may be travelling among the itinerant rave folks. The movie opens at a rave in the Moroccan desert, with the father and his twelve-year-old son handing out flyers with the girl’s face on it, to no luck—no one has seen her. They meet the other main characeters, a small group of ravers, who tell them that they’re going to another rave, farther south, and they maybe the daughter could be at that one. The father decides to follow this group, to their minor annoyance at first, though his money comes in handy for buying much-needed gas.
The father, Luis, played by Sergi López, is an odd character. He’s not at first likeable, though determined and there’s something at least fatherly in his quest to save his daughter, though one suspects maybe she ran away for a reason. His son Esteban, played by Bruno Niñez Arjona, is the sympathetic one from the beginning, and we see Rave Culture through both of their eyes, both the cynical and innocent.
The ravers at first aren’t really likeable either, to most people who aren’t already into the outdoor rave scene—which is most viewers: they’re priviledged lost (white) people who just want to do drugs and dance to bad techno. Interestingly, one of their vehicles is call ‘the 911’ (after part of a license number)—that is, 911 is driving them further into the middle east, and trouble. Their two vehicles are otherwise almost urban assault vehicles—highly modified off-road trucks, the 911 almost military-grade. Of the five rave folks, two of the men, Biguí and Tonin (Richard ‘Biguí’ Bellamy and Tonin Janvier), are handicapped, we never learn exactly why (there are thankfully no flashbacks and/or backstories—viewers have to figure things out as the go) but they seem to be combat injuries. One of the women, Jade (Jade Oukid) the older more mom-like figure, says cryptically at one point that she never got to say goodbye to her parents. These are damaged folks, maybe understandable that they want to drop out of normal society.
Nevertheless...none of them are that smart—living from rave to rave and gas tank to gas tank—cut off from any real Morrocans—yet as we get to know them through the eyes of the Spanish dad and son, they become likeable. They’re not bad people, they just don’t want to participate in normal society. Which may be selfish and avoiding responsibility. The boy thinks they’re “cool” but only a kid would think that. They don’t don’t think themselves cool, they just accept each other as fellow misfits and a surrogate family, since none of them seems (again from clues they say) to have had a loving family.
But, they make bad decisions. As all humans do. When the first rave is broken up by the Morroccaan army, there’s a reason: some kind of world conflict/war is brewing and the government wants to ship all Europeans back to Europe before it breaks out. Our crew wants nothing to do with any of this and heads south to another supposed rave, though any other vehicles besides theirs turn back right at the beginning. There just doesn’t seem to be a rave yet they head south as if they knew what they’re doing—though unclear if they know where they’re going. The going seems the point. And they become their own rave.
But, acting irresponsibly has consequences and responsibilities—they can avoid the latter, but not the former. The original plotline—that the father and son are looking for the daughter/sister who seems to maybe have just run away (and is a legal adult), and maybe run away from the father, and who may or may not have ‘vanished’—that plot drives the movie at first, but then fades as they travel further and further into the desert on an absurd-ish voyage—they’re in the middle of the fucking desert—seems like the father would have a better chance of finding her in the stream of refugees back to Europe. But he seem enchanted by this group of misfits, and maybe sees in them a way to understand his daughter and why she would run away. That too has consequences, and put-aside responsibilities.
So the Europeans become refugees just like everyone else. Each character represents some countries of Europe, and those countries are lost.
