🎬 #201 Sound and Fury.
Bear in mind that when this week’s film ended, I turned to my good friend Pete whose opinion I really value, and he was silent. But later than night he texted me saying that he hated it. I had loved it. Seeing the general reaction online it seems those two reactions sum it up pretty well.
Please enjoy
Bry
FILM: SIRĀT
2025 Dir Óliver Laxe
1 hr 55 mins
SIRĀT is a unique experience because the filmmakers have managed to use sound and music in a way that’s as vital to the film as the music is in 2001. Obviously music and sound is critical but here it’s 90 percent of the experience. It’s incredibly visceral, very sensorial, and I haven’t seen anything like it in the cinemas in a long time. My friend and I got tickets to see a special preview of it at the IMAX in London with the director doing a Q&A afterwards. He introduced it by talking a lot about wanting people to switch off their minds and experience the film through their bodies, rather than thinking logically or critically. He wanted people to just feel it. It really is like that, especially on a huge screen with a big sound system.
I don’t want to say too much about the film because I think it’s actually best seen, best felt, best experienced going in with knowing as little as possible about it. The film has had many comparisons. I don’t really want to touch on them so much, but when you do see it, you’ll see what people are talking about. It’s trucks in a desert, intense, so the obvious surface level comparisons are clear. What I loved about it is that it captures the transcendent feeling of being surrounded by music and sound in a rave. You’re in this hallucinatory state just like some of the characters are in the film. You’re apart from the world, but deeply connected to the natural elements around you. It’s a film that’s part survival, part outward search for a loved one but also an inward search into what keeps us going. What’s keeps us dancing in the emptiness, surrounded by chaos that can appear at any moment.
Please seek it out in the biggest screen possible when it comes out in the UK and US next month.
SIDE NOTE: I’m not sure about you but when I have something I want to work on I can find myself going to my browser to procrastinate. Opening up tabs to delay getting stuck into it, whatever it happens to be. So I made this Chrome extension that, unlike web blockers, doesn’t actually block anything. It simply asks you to input projects you’re currently working on, like ‘write screenplay’ or learn French’ and asks you which websites are time sucks for you. Then, the next time you go to one of those sites - it’ll just nudge you by asking if you’d rather spend 15 mins on your project rather than go procrastinate for 2 hours. All of that is to say that it’s called Traction and is available for free on the Chrome web store right now. Any notes or feedback on it would be greatly appreciated. And if you find it useful please leave a rating. It’s been a little side project I’ve been working on the last couple of weeks - hope you enjoy it.