A father and son join an unlikely group of ravers in the deserts of Morocco as they search for a missing daughter in Sirât, which shocked audiences in Cannes and played this year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival before opening in Prague cinemas from Sept. 25. This expertly-composed road movie has no shortage of its own merits that would rank it among the top films of the year, but the shocking turns the story takes will leave your jaw firmly planted on the floor by the time the credits roll. It’s a genuine stunner.
Director Oliver Laxe establishes the tone in Sirât‘s opening sequence, set in the middle of barren North African landscape dominated by rock and sand, an uninviting setting untouched by man. Subwoofers and speakers are stacked atop each other and begin pumping out a guttural electronic-techno score so bass-heavy that the sand jumps in rhythm from the rock. Soon, we’re in the middle of a desert rave where mindless drug-fueled bodies join the landscape in responding to the primal, endlessly-throbbing beats.
Throughout this madness, two characters who don’t belong make their way through the crowds, attempting to communicate with little success. They are Luis (Sergi López, excellent as the lone professional in the cast) and his young son Esteban (Bruno Núñez Arjona), who hand out flyers of Mar, Luis’s daughter and Esteban’s sister, who has inexplicably run off with some of these ravers. Their quest of finding her seems doomed from the very outset.
Local police shut down this party, but a group of friendly ravers advise the father and son about another rave, taking place in a nearby location in the coming days. They are Steff (Stefania Gadda), Josh (Joshua Liam Herderson), Bigui (Richard ‘Bigui’ Bellamy), Tonin (Tonin Janvier), and Jade (Jade Oukid)—non-professional performers who appear to be playing themselves with such efficiency that it feels like they have been plucked directly out of a desert rave to appear in this movie.
Throughout Sirât, it is hinted that a major event, perhaps a World War, is taking place outside of this environment. The characters shell out an exorbitant price for gasoline and observe the local military mobilize, but are otherwise too focused on their own goals to pay attention to the ending world that surrounds them. Perhaps Luis and Esteban want to share their final moments on Earth with Mar; the ravers, meanwhile, are so dedicated to their search for a good time that they’re willing to risk their lives for it.
And they’ll get that chance. The roads are blocked by authorities, so the ravers turn their bus to the desert. Luis and Esteban, their car hardly equipped for the journey, follow them in desperation. Their journey will bring them to harrowing roads that straddle the sides of mountains, in scenes that recall H.G. Clouzot’s The Wages of Fear or William Friedkin’s remake Sorcerer. The dystopian desert setting, meanwhile, evokes memories of the Mad Max sequel The Road Warrior.
The film’s title, Sirât, comes from the Islamic term for the bridge that is crossed on the Day of Reckoning. And there’s a quiet beauty in watching this middle-class father and son bond with these fringe-of-society types as they make their way to the edges of the Earth in a world that is collapsing around them. But the bridge is “thinner than a hair and sharper than a sword,” and the film’s narrative comes to a shocking halt as the characters fall off of it.
There’s a hypnotic beauty to Sirât that makes the film’s climactic events hit so hard. Vital to the film’s success is cinematographer Mauro Herce’s evocative sand-swept compositions that keep a distance from the characters, but fully embed them within their environment. The film was shot on location in both Morocco and Spain, where the striking cliffs of the Rambla de Barrachina feature in some of the film’s most memorable moments.
A visceral techno score by Kangding Ray is just as important, and has a way of pulling us into the events of the film even as we might resist it. Music is as important to the film as it is to its characters, and Ray’s relentless rhythm transfixes us right alongside the protagonists: the pulsating soundtrack helps hold our rapt attention right up until the beat suddenly, and tragically, stops.
Beyond its striking visuals and pulsating soundtrack, Sirât is a meditation on the human condition: what drives us to go on as our world collapses around us. The film juxtaposes the father and son’s quiet desperation with the ravers’ hedonistic abandon, creating a tension between survival and surrender. Laxe’s deliberate pacing and measured editing allow the audience to feel both the vast isolation of the desert and the immediacy of the characters’ emotional stakes, making each climactic turn all the more devastating.
Sirât came away from Cannes with the Jury Prize, but may not be as well remembered come awards season in the wake of more audience-friendly international hits. But this one is a real stunner, and one of the year’s best. It’s the rare film that is as much of an experience as it is a movie, and demands to be seen on the biggest and loudest screen possible to let its explosive impact fully wash over you.
