Spotlight on Oliver Laxe’s films:
You All
Are Captains (2010)
Mimosas
(2016)
Fire Will
Come (2019)
Sirat
(2025)
Plus,
additional note on Ben Rivers’ The Sky Trembles and the Earth is Afraid
and the Two Eyes Are Not Brothers (2015)
I am happy
to say that I was there from the start to witness Oliver Laxe’s film
trajectory. His debut feature, You All Are Captains, was part of
our film festival’s Mavericks program, a spotlight to showcase new promising
directors. Safe to say, our festival got Laxe’s selection right. He indeed has
gone to great acclaim since his debut feature.
There are a
few common elements/themes that emerge from all four features, including Ben
River’s The Sky Trembles:
Landscape as
character: Landscape plays a big part in all of Laxe’s films with the rugged terrain
of Morocco in 3 of his features plus Ben Rivers’ The Sky Trembles.
The exception of a Moroccan location is Laxe’s Fire Will Come but
in that film, the landscape of Spain is front and centre with its depiction
of the Galician forests.
Spiritual
and Mysticism: Spiritualism and mysticism permeate in Oliver Laxe’s films with
characters undertaking life-changing journeys and grappling with themes of guilt,
death, redemption.
Immersive
and contemplative cinema: Laxe’s films offer an immersive experience with the
thoughtful combination of camera angles and usage of music. The shots aren’t
rushed, thereby allowing one to soak in the atmosphere while contemplating on
the character’s fate and choices.
You
All Are Captains (2010)
Oliver Laxe’s impressive award winning black and white film
demonstrates that even an improvised film needs a structure to make the work
engaging. The film's first 20 minutes feature a filmmaker teaching school kids
how to use a camera. The filmmaker has no script or goal in mind and a result,
frustrates his students who are puzzled by the filmmaker's motives. After the
kids complain, the filmmaker is replaced with another director who gives a
structure thereby letting the film's brilliance shine through. The ending of
the film in color puts the whole work into perspective including the first 20
minutes. Laxe brilliantly announced himself with this bold assured debut.
The
Sky Trembles and the Earth is Afraid and the Two Eyes Are Not Brothers (2015,
Ben Rivers)
This film’s long title, multi-layered structure and core
story draws inspiration from Paul Bowles’ writing. The structure of the film is
a nod to what Bowles managed in ‘A Hundred Camels in the Courtyard’
where Bowles found a common thread to link 4 completely different stories
together. In The Sky Trembles, Ben Rivers has constructed a film
which links together multiple works including a short story, a short film, some
documentary footage and an art installation. All these works are seamlessly
stitched together in a linear manner.
Rivers has managed this by alternating one aspect of Paul
Bowles’ short story ‘A Distant Episode’. In the short story, the main
character is a professor. In the film, the main character is a film director.
This change allows Ben Rivers to find a common thread to link the different
elements. This is because at the start of The Sky Trembles, we
see the filmmaker Oliver Laxe scouting for locations in Morocco and attempting
to complete a gruelling film shoot. The scenes we see are actual footage from
Laxe's second feature Mimosas. And then at some point in The
Sky Trembles, Oliver Laxe stops shooting his film and steps into Paul
Bowles story. What then follows is a series of remarkable events.
Mimosas
(2016)
The Mimosas
appetizer in Ben Rivers’ The Sky Trembles was promising which is
why it is an absolute pleasure to discover that Laxe’s second feature Mimosas
delivers a scrumptious cinematic buffet. In fact, Mimosas
contains the full depiction of Laxe’s cinematic style (landscape, mysticism,
contemplation) and one can draw a direct line from Mimosas to Sirat.
Sirat
(2025)
Mimosas got noticed on the film festival
circuit but you would have been hard pressed to find it on any end of the year
list or part of general film conversation. The same cannot be said of Sirat, which has featured prominently in best of the year lists. The success of Sirat shows how one can retool their film for a wider audience. The Mimosas
to Sirat repackaging echoes that of Albert Serra who took the
core of his earlier study of diplomats and powerful people and repurposed it in
a more contemporary setting for Pacification which ended up being
his most accessible and widely distributed film. In a similar manner, Laxe has taken
the essence and core of Mimosas and repurposed it in Sirat.
Mimosas features a spiritual journey where
death hovers over it characters, both literally and metaphorically. Death is
also omnipresent in Sirat but Laxe trades away the silence in Mimosas
for techno music (EDM, rave music). The subtle spirituality of Mimosas
gives way to the on the nose scenarios of Sirat’s final third
act. Both Mimosas and Sirat end in a similar
manner, where characters trade up their traveling method. In Mimosas,
the foot and horse journey gives way to cars in the end, while in Sirat
the cars/vans give way to train. The finale of each film shows that the
characters are defeated by the Moroccan landscape and their mode of
transportation is a respite, away from the landscape which they may not have
conquered physically but certainly scaled in a spiritual manner. You can be
sure that the characters in both these films emerge from the landscape
transformed.
Fire
Will Come (2019)
There is a
transformation in Fire Will Come and the film is a trial by fire
for its main character, Amador (Amador Arias), who is released from jail
for suspected arson and returns home to live with his mother. His crimes are
not forgiven and the locals are still suspicious of him. Therefore, it isn’t
surprising that when a fire breaks out, they suspect him. However, Amador is
determined to cleanse his soul and fight his inner demons.
The film’s
rural setting and suspicious neighbours reminds of Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s riveting
film The Beasts (2022). However, the differing approaches of both
films show overall intent of the director. The Beasts shows what unfolds when simmering
inner frustrations are allowed to erupt leading to violence. In Fire Will
Come, Amador is suffering as well but his struggle is internalized. The
fire in the film is also symbolic of his attempt at burning away
his past and being reborn, in a similar manner to how fires help shape a forest
and allow it to grow back healthier.
Ranking
Oliver Laxe’s films in order of preference:
1.
Mimosas (2016)
The best of
all four of Oliver Laxe’s films and one that highlights his auteur style the
best.
2. Sirat
(2025)
The most
successful of Laxe’s films to date and is a case study of how to take spiritual
themes of a more artistic film such as Mimosas and repurpose for
a more accessible film.
3. Fire
Will Come (2019)
4. You
All Are Captains (2010)
