Sirât

Mehdi Salehi Film Critic - Editor-in-Chief of "Green Smile" News Website (Iran(

Oliver Laxe's fourth feature film, Sirât, marks not only his brilliant debut in the Cannes Film Festival's main competition but also stands as his boldest and most evolved work to date. This Spanish-French co-production traces a surreal, profoundly existential journey through Morocco's harsh yet majestic desert landscapes-a work that challenges cinematic conventions while confronting viewers with fundamental questions about life, death, hope, and civilizational collapse.

Synopsis and Narrative Structure Luis (masterfully portrayed by Sergi López) and his teenage son Esteban (Bruno Núñez) search for their missing daughter/sister "Mar" at an illegal rave deep in the Moroccan desert. When military forces abruptly shut down the gathering amid apocalyptic warnings of global war, they join a band of nomadic ravers-Jade (Jade Oaked), Tonin (Tonin Janvier), Bigoey (Richard Blamy), Steffi (Stefania Gadda), and Josh (Joshua Liam Henderson)-who seek another rave further into the desert where Mar might be found.

The film's first half unfolds at a measured pace, blending dark comedy and drama as human connections form within this makeshift "family." A devastating mid-film turning point-a catastrophic accident and its aftermath-shatters this equilibrium. From here, *Sirât* descends into darker existential and allegorical territory, where characters confront death, madness, and societal ruin while grappling for survival.

Artistic Mastery

• Direction & Suspense: Laxe demonstrates masterful control of space, rhythm, and tension, expanding the suspense techniques of his 2019 film Fire Will Come on a grander scale. His ability to sustain escalating dread despite radical tonal/genre shifts culminates in a simultaneously absurd and harrowing climax.

• Cinematography: Mauro Herce's lens captures Morocco's deserts (and Spanish stand-ins) with breathtaking yet menacing beauty. Wide shots, harsh natural lighting, and Super 16mm textures shine in scenes like the speaker-setup under ochre cliffs and the convoy's nocturnal journey.

• Sound & Music: Kangding Ray's bass-driven electronic score-Cannes' 2025 Best Soundtrack winner-anchors the film like a pounding heartbeat, mirroring rave euphoria and the characters' spiral into delirium. Laia Casanova's sound design layers ambient desert noise (wind, sand, engine roars) into an immersive sonic tapestry.

• Performances: López delivers a physically expressive, quietly commanding turn as Luis. Non-professional actors (often sharing their characters' names) authentically embody sun-scorched, marginalized resilience, with Blamy and Oaked standing out. Núñez radiates fragile innocence as Esteban.

Themes and Symbolism

• The "Sirât" Bridge: The title references the razor-thin Islamic bridge between paradise and hell-a metaphor for characters navigating hope/despair, sanity/madness, and civilization/barbarism.

• Existential Quest: Luis' search for Mar evolves into a struggle for meaning and belonging in a collapsing world. The film poses unanswerable questions: What remains when we lose everything? Animal instinct? Angelic grace? Human dignity?

• Apocalypse as Allegory: The war-torn backdrop mirrors modern instability and refugee crises, with the group's perilous journey evoking migrants' desperate quests for safety.

• Collectivism vs. Chaos :The ravers represent a post-apocalyptic micro-utopia built on communal joy-a vision both seductive and fragile against external and internal chaos.

Narrative Audacity and Flaws The film's radical mid-point genre shift-from road drama to existential horror-shocks viewers into recontextualizing all prior events. While this narrative gamble showcases Laxe's confidence, it also exposes weaknesses: 1. Third-Act Disjointedness: Focus on allegory overshadows plot coherence, sidelining Mar's storyline.

2. Exhausting Violence: Relentless tragedy in the second half risks numbing viewers and veering into exploitation.

3. Underdeveloped Characters: Prioritizing atmosphere over psychology leaves motivations unexplored.

4. Problematic Gaze: Portrayals of Morocco occasionally echo colonial perspectives despite Laxe's familiarity with the region.

5. Unsatisfying Closure: The ambiguous, bleak ending may frustrate mainstream audiences.

Legacy and Significance Sirât epitomizes Laxe's signature style-poetic realism, social-existential themes, non-professional actors, and audacious formal experimentation. Technically superior to earlier works like »You All Are Captains (2010)«, »Mimosas (2016)«, and »Fire Will Come (2019)«, it solidifies his artistic maturity. As Laxe himself notes, this is his most politically radical work: a ruthless deconstruction of societal collapse, human violence, and migration crises through narrative subversion.

Blending European arthouse sensibilities with road-movie grit, apocalyptic tension, electronic energy, and Hollywood-esque thrills (Mad Max, Sorcerer), Sirât carves a distinct cinematic identity. Its haunting power lingers long after the credits-an uncompromising demand to confront darkness through unfiltered vision.

Footnotes Existentialism*: A philosophy emphasizing individual existence, absolute freedom, and personal responsibility. It posits that humans define their essence through choices in an inherently meaningless world, embracing anxiety to live authentically.

Raves*: Underground parties organized by DJs requiring personal referrals. Attendees pay entry fees, and recreational drug use is prevalent.

Sirat is a profound meditation on the fragility of the human condition and the illusions of safety embedded in the Western worldview. Oliver Laxe challenges our assumptions of stability, revealing how easily the structures we rely on-both physical and emotional-can be shaken by the randomness of life. Through its stripped-down narrative and haunting visual poetry, the film reminds us of our vulnerability and the urgent need for humility when confronting the unexpected. Sirat is not just a cinematic experience; it's a quiet, powerful wake-up call.

The film also fosters a deep sense of empathy toward those who live in regions marked by material hardship and constant insecurity. By immersing us in a reality so far removed from Western comfort, Sirat dismantles the distance between "us" and "them." It allows us to feel, however briefly, the weight of a life lived without guarantees. In doing so, it encourages a more compassionate and humble perspective toward those whose daily lives are shaped by instability, reminding us that resilience is often born from circumstances we can barely imagine.

The road movie-or road story-has been a device used by storytellers since the first fictional tale was inscribed onto a tablet with The Epic of Gilgamesh. There is something about traversing space that reflects the movement and growth of a character, offering a tidy structure to present challenges for the hero to overcome and learn from. Yet the use of the mythical journey-a descent into an otherworldly realm-is far less common today than it was for the Ancient Greeks, with stories like Orpheus or The Odyssey. Instead, contemporary cinema often opts for a more literal exploration of self-discovery, as seen in Nomadland (2020). Oliver Laxe, the Franco-Hispanic director, revives the ancient mythic descent in his latest Cannes-winning film, Sirat (2025).

Sirat follows a Spanish father, Luis (Sergi López), who is searching for his missing daughter, Mar, with his young son Esteban (Bruno Núñez Arjona), amid a techno rave in the Moroccan desert. They fall in with a group of partygoers headed to a second rave across the barren landscape, where Mar may be. Luis and Esteban embark on a treacherous journey across the unforgiving land, questioning whether they can trust their punkish companions-and whether the ominous feeling gnawing at their gut is a warning worth heeding.

Sirat refers to the mythical bridge between paradise and hell-said to be thinner than a strand of hair. Laxe immerses viewers in a techno-soaked atmosphere through patient, detail-oriented framing, with hypnotic images of the wide-open desert that evoke David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962). He lulls us with the pulsing dance scenes while building a creeping sense of unease, as Luis observes odd yet plausibly dismissible behavior from their fellow travelers. As the hero's journey unfolds, we begin to wonder: Are the characters crossing the Sirat from paradise or from hell-and is the answer waiting for them at the end?

This tonal and visual tightrope is held aloft by the exceptional collaboration between cinematographer Mauro Herce and the pulsating techno score by Kangding Ray. The entire experience is orchestrated with confident aplomb by Laxe's steady hand.

In many ways, Sirat recalls Laxe's earlier film Fire Will Come (2019): it begins with a structured plot, only to slowly shed narrative momentum in favor of aesthetic and liminal exploration. What starts as a simple missing-person thriller gradually morphs into something dreamlike and uncanny. By the third act, we feel less like Sherlock Holmes and more like Dante Alighieri, crossing through a strange and fearsome world with nothing but our curiosity and dread to guide us.

This descent into the opaque and magical will enthrall some viewers-those attuned to the sensibilities of Gaspar Noé or the Mad Max films. But Laxe's choice to begin with a more conventional setup may leave others feeling betrayed when the story abandons its initial promises. A more consistent tone from the outset might have delivered a stronger narrative throughline and greater emotional payoff.

The cast is uniformly strong. Veteran actor Sergi López anchors the film with quiet intensity, while young Bruno Núñez Arjona is commanding as Esteban. The punk group-played by Stefania Gadda, Joshua Liam Henderson, Richard Bellamy, Tonin Janvier, and Jade Oukid-bring an impressive ability to sketch distinct, layered characters. Remarkably, Laxe gives us no backstories. Instead, through small quotidian moments, the characters accrue a depth that no exposition-heavy monologue could ever hope to achieve.

In the end, Sirat is both a mesmerizing trip and an unsettling descent. Laxe once again reveals his fascination with liminal and mystical spaces, especially in how they intersect with our relationship to a harsh natural world. One can only hope he continues to lead us through these hypnotic, fearsome landscapes in his future films.

This is a really great music video with awful dialogues. Like, honesty, if this was mute I'd give it a 9/10. But if you're a native Spanish speaker it just feels so fake. Like, why are the French people speaking Spanish among themselves? The text is redundant, it's just repeating what you see on the screen, it lacks depth, the Spanish deliveries on native Spanish actors are awful. They just sound super fake.

I mean, I really made an effort to like the movie, the music was a banger, cinematography and costume design were spot on, the side characters were awesome too. But I would just get so thrown off by the dialogues that I'd loose the immersion. And it sucks.

SIRAT

An excellent film which metaphorizes our deepest feelings, a road movie of a man with his son in search of the man's daughter and the son's sister.

A very impressive cinematography: the profound landscape, as a character, probably the most important character of the film. One feels the Nature, as a superior intelligence. We are all here with the same destiny.

There are at least 3 turning points, three important plot points, one of them in the middle of the film. The middle of the second act.

We will explode watching a picture which reminds us of "Zabriskie Point" by Michelangelo Antonioni or maybe "Fata Morgana" by Werner Herzog.

We all live in the same train.

Nice movie!