Movie Review: Sirât
One-liner: This elusive, intense, meandering and surreal desert road movie immerses audiences through powerful themes, naturalistic performances and epic visuals.
Sirât is a coming-of-age road movie and drama that plunges into an enigmatic and epic journey with Luis, a middle-aged man, and his son, Esteban, as they search for Luis’s missing daughter. Their desperate quest begins at a Moroccan desert rave where Luis suspects she might be, leading them to join a displaced clan of ravers trying to reach a semi-mythical dance festival near the Mauritanian border. Their plans are disrupted when army forces disperse the rave amidst a nearby global conflict, forcing some to scatter and others to be rounded up for evacuation.
This rogue offshoot of traveling gypsies becomes an unexpected new family for Luis and Esteban, as they join a convoy and embark on an epic overland road trip where there often aren’t roads. Set against an arid, unforgiving backdrop, Sirât has an otherworldly quality – much like the Namibian desert that formed the space for Mad Max: Fury Road. The atmosphere is tough yet beautiful, with the dust, heat and vast nothingness creating a slow, creeping tension.
This tension is exacerbated by the primal environment itself, where accidents and mishaps carry life-altering consequences. While Sirât boasts a surreal visual quality, it’s grounded by a docudrama feel, making for a strangely intoxicating escapade. The presence of two amputees on this conquest into the wilderness adds another layer to the visuals, while the pulsating soundtrack and stark horizons make Sirât comparable with a hippie war movie.
The core drama centers on a concerned father and his attempts to reconnect with his daughter, discovering a ragtag family of sorts in the process. Sergi López takes on the gritty, fish-out-of-water role of Luis, supported by a diverse ensemble including Bruno Núñez Arjona, Stefania Gadda and Richard Bellamy.
“How are we not there yet?”
Sirât is an emotional drama, but writer-director Oliver Laxe treats his characters as subjects. Keeping them at an arm’s length, the film remains more observational than introspective, moving through a spectrum of emotions from pure euphoria to utter heartbreak as the mystery unfolds. Sirât grapples with challenging themes without ever becoming overly sentimental, content to struggle with unresolved emotion and difficult answers.
The weary band of travelers must resign themselves to the deadly nature of being out in the wild, far from civilization. Wild and free, they are at the mercy of limited fuel, rations and water. As they move further away, a sense of alienation creeps in and the lofty ideals around “dancing your problems away” collide with harsh realities.
Through naturalistic performances – where the actors truly live through their characters and experience the harsh environment – Sirât celebrates the beauty of humanity as the thought of survival becomes their only hope. This dreamlike road movie captures a curious balance between man and nature, showing how hordes of ravers occupy a space only for the desert to reclaim and overwhelm with its expanse. It taps into the psychedelic energy and live-for-the-moment quality that attracts people to these far removed festivals.
Partly a coming-of-age tale and partly a surreal survival adventure, the suspense adds a subtle horror-thriller dynamic as Sirât remains aloof and just out of reach in its mystery. It’s far from predictable, moving almost by association rather than by way of a strict plot. The sparse dialogue is more concerned with storytelling than deep characterization, making this ensemble drama less about individual portraits and more about the immersive cinematic experience – one that rekindles a faith in humanity and inspires a fearless attitude toward living for today.
There’s much to appreciate in Sirât. While somewhat bleak, a little meandering and veering off the beaten track in more ways than one, this elusive and intense film is memorable, conjuring up some breathtakingly beautiful scenes without relenting on its emotional intensity. Intriguing, suspenseful and thick-skinned, it has an immersive quality through its docudrama edge and realistic depiction while retaining its dreamy, artistic outlook and earthy roots.
The bottom line: Elusive
