Sirat (Oliver Laxe, 2025)

Just deserts

Oliver Laxe's Sirat is a little hard to describe: Luis (Sergi Lopez) and his son Esteban (Bruno Nunez Arjona) look for his daughter Mar in a rave in southern Morocco. The pair wander aimlessly while the dancers surround them in an assortment of clothing haircuts hair dyes tattoos piercings, all swaying to the pulsing rhythm. They talk to people, hand out photos; no one has seen her, but there's another rave, closer to Mauritania, where they might find her. 

(Warning: story and narrative twists discussed in explicit detail!)

So far so unpromising. It's a dusty milieu, the ravers don't seem interested in or can't afford high fashion, and the music is more loud than anything. More, Luis doesn't show much urgency to his search; he and Esteban walk about trying not to stare at all the writhing bodies, looking distinctly uncomfortable, so fish-out-of-water they're literally gasping for air. We-- or, rather, Laxe's camera-- stick close to the pair because they seem to be the only familiar, approachable, reasonably clean people in the crowd. 

But is Luis being casual or cautious? It's been five months since they've seen her, and we have no idea long he's been looking, or what his search's been like-- could Luis' nonchalant manner be something he acquired along the way, a kind of emotional guard to keep from repelling others, a way of warding off hustlers or con men or predators? A way of guarding himself from what he possibly may find (Mar dead, or worse).

Soldiers arrive, announce the rave is over and they must evacuate; Luis and a group consisting of two vans break away from the military escort and drive deeper into the desert. Luis has to depend on these people-- he apparently knows nothing about the desert, knows next to nothing about driving through a desert or over mountains with rugged roads. The ravers don't look particularly friendly but they help, reluctantly, and he reciprocates in turn. 

And that, I submit, is the fragile heart of the film: the kind of camaraderie that can form in extreme conditions, in this case the heat and bleakness of a Moroccan desert. The ravers are practical (or as practical as folks looking for the next party are practical), and frugal with their resources, but confronted with someone's distress they somehow some way step up to extend a hand. "These people are cool," Esteban breathes. He finds the ravers' tightknit bond refreshing, wants to spend as much time with them as he can. Stef, the group's unofficial den mother; Jade, of the flinty face but inexpressibly compassionate eyes; Tonin, who manages to improvise a puppet show out of his stump leg singing into its prosthetic peg for a microphone; large-bellied large-hearted Bigui; Josh the chatterbox. They're idealists in their way, leaving societal norms and value judgements behind to seek out the latest techno sensation and each other. You could call them marginalized but they're really knights in patchwork armor still tilting at windmills or, in this case, stereo speakers. 

That's what the film's wayward first half is all about; a sudden left turn (actually more a downward curve to the right) and these characters you've followed-- reluctantly then eagerly, your attachment to them having at this point taken root and sprouted-- undergo the ultimate test of survival, and as writers from Jack London to Ernest Hemingway to F Scott Fitzgerald will tell you, the true nature of one's character is revealed under such circumstances. 

A note on the music: not a fan nor an expert of techno or of music in general, but the score's relentless pounding beat, initially annoying, starts seeping into your skin as the film progresses, to the point that it becomes metaphorical-- standing, in effect for our ravers' nihilistic need for that unrefined vibration in their ears and on their faces, and for their respective heartbeats which, as it turns out, can be suddenly cut short at any time. 

And that's it, that's the movie. Except that the aforementioned endurance test is more superbly timed and staged and drawn-out tense than anything I've seen in any other film this year (to be fair haven't really been looking that hard)-- Sinners? One Battle After Another? Snore. In terms of sheer teeth-grinding armrest-ripping beads-of-sweat-popping-on-upper-lip suspense this is superior, not just because of simple suspense mechanics but because over the course of its nearly two hour running time it's succeeded in letting you know each of its characters and making you care about their ultimate respective fates.

As for the title: 'sirat' apparently is an Islamic term, the bridge between heaven and hell, that the one without sin can cross quick without effort while others will plunge into the fires below, and one can take it as a random label slapped onto what happens onscreen or one can take it as the film's true viewpoint: that we're all tested similarly, as randomly, by life.   

Maybe the other major criticism that can be leveled on this film is the question: what does this all ultimately mean or does it mean anything at all? The final images do suggest something-- that what Luis and Esteban and the rest of the ravers, citizens of an ostensibly more civilized society traveling to this far corner of the earth in search of a party a vibe maybe a daughter, what people from a more ostensibly civilized culture might consider a terrifying nightmare scenario-- for the people seated next to them it's Tuesday.