Approximately halfway through Sirāt, Oliver Laxe’s intense desert rave thriller, there’s a scene that immediately drains the atmosphere from the space. This exact experience occurred during the New York Film Festival screening in September: a hush fell over the crowd the moment they realized what was imminent. Several startled exhales escaped, and you could practically sense the collective heartbeat of the audience skip a beat.
Afterward, chaos erupts as Sirāt shifts from a gritty desert journey into a terrifying plunge into nightmare. Revealing further details would spoil the entire experience, but I must emphasize that Sirāt should be viewed with complete ignorance of what follows.
Up for Best International Feature at this year’s , Sirāt defies typical awards-season expectations. With its grimy, electric, and utterly transfixing qualities, the film sits a few steps away from exploitation thriller territory, bearing stronger resemblance to drug-addled genre flicks than arthouse cinema.
The movie begins at a rave in southern Morocco’s deserts, where the throbbing rhythms from electronic musician Kangding Ray fully plunge us into the perspiring release of rave culture. The initial dancing sequence extends so long that it weaves a hypnotic trance around the spectator, persisting even as the bass-heavy tremors diminish when we transition to Luis (Sergi López) cautiously moving toward partygoers while holding a photograph of his vanished daughter, Mar. Luis learned that Mar had fled to a Moroccan rave, prompting him to rent a shabby van and bring his little boy Esteban (Bruno Núñez Arjona) plus their canine companion along for the hunt. The droning electronic soundtrack carries on behind the action as Luis and Esteban persistently query numerous individuals regarding Mar’s location, all while the vivid desert daylight sinks into twilight.
However, their quest—and the rave itself—abruptly stops when military personnel appear, commanding the attendees to leave due to intensifying warfare between adjacent nations. Initially, Luis and Esteban comply, merging into the lengthy caravan of vehicles being shepherded by troops away from the festival site, but upon spotting two vans detaching from the convoy, Luis impulsively begins trailing them. The die-hard ravers—Stef (Stefania Gadda), Jade (Jade Oukid), Tonin (Tonin Janvier), Bigui (Richard Bellamy), and Josh (Joshua Liam Henderson)—attempt to discourage Luis and Esteban from pursuing, but finally disclose their destination: another rave further into the wasteland. Certain they might locate Mar there, Luis and Esteban demand to tag along, and the ravers grudgingly consent to lead them. And so, as thin radio broadcasts grimly caution about global collapse into WWIII, our bizarre, meandering desert expedition begins.
Sirāt achieves a remarkably grand and intimidating effect despite its truly modest scope. This may stem from its beginnings as a fairly personal voyage, as Luis and Esteban grow tighter with this motley crew of ravers, all portrayed by non-professional performers. The ravers, layered in days of filth and adorned with numerous piercings and ink, inject a primal quality into the film that contradicts its rather deliberate emotional rhythms. Yet even as Sirāt progresses toward its inevitable point of no return, you find yourself becoming enamored with the outsiders’ way of life, as they generously distribute their provisions, provide some mind-altering compounds, and wholeheartedly embrace Luis and Esteban into their unconventional surrogate clan.
That endearing makeshift clan provides a crucial stabilizing force as the party ventures further into the wasteland, where harsh conditions begin to erode them. Laxe expresses a reverence for nature’s brutal splendor, which grows increasingly dominant as the story unfolds. By the moment Sirāt arrives at its breathtaking finale, that reverence morphs into dread as our heroes comprehend just how powerless and insignificant humanity is when confronted with powers vastly greater than themselves.
At a certain juncture, one of the ravers ponders whether they’ve inadvertently wandered into hell and become imprisoned there. Maybe even euphoric dancing at civilization’s collapse provides no escape. This is the grim tone on which Sirāt concludes, and it’s apt to disturb audiences for many hours following the final credits.