Review by Tim Robins
Óliver Laxe’s Sirât (2025) follows a father, Luis, (Sergi López ) travelling across a cursed Earth in search of his missing daughter. Luis believes she has joined a nomadic rave scene travelling across the mountains and deserts of Morocco. With his young son, Esteban, and their pet dog, Pipa, he joins a small convoy of festival misfits, setting out in search of the next rave.
The film’s direction and cinematography evokes the spirit of Mad Max movies and the punky post-apocalyptic cursed earth tales of 2000AD’s “Judge Dredd”. In interview, Laxe has noted, “I’m expressing the sensitivity of a human being in the last days of humanity – trying to trust in himself and having the tools, but also having too much ego to do it”.
The scenario is made all the more apocalyptic by radio news stories detailing an escalating, unseen, military conflict. One traveller wonders if it is the end of the world. “It’s been the end of the world for a long time,” replies another.
Sirât evokes Sorcerer (1977), William Friedkin’s adaptation of the Wages of Sin. Sorcerer memorably follows a convoy of trucks carrying a dangerously volatile payload across an inhospitable terrain.
In Sirât, much of the threat comes from the terrain itself, with stunning Spanish locations standing in for Morocco’s Atlas and Anti-Atlas mountain ranges. the film is not for those afraid of heights. The road trip turns deadly as the road itself, a precipitous mountain trek, begins crumbling underneath their ramshackle vehicles.
“I really wanted to make a film with trucks,” Sirât’s director recalls,“We started with trucks crossing the desert”. After abandoning a truck-based take on Wacky Races, Laxe co-wrote a script, with Santiagio Fillol, that combined his love of dance culture with aspects of his Islamic faith. Sirât is the name of a razor-thin bridge said to pass over hell on the way to paradise.
The characters’ add a tension of their own. Luis makes some terrible, careless, decisions that led me to wonder if his daughter had left home out of sheer frustration with her father. Esteban explains her departure more matter-of-factly; Mar was an adult and just decided to walk off.
Like Luis, the ravers struggle with decision making. Surrounded by danger on every side, one raver admits that he’s so high he can’t think. Eventually, the apparently self-sufficient travellers admit they need help – but there isn’t any to have. A young shepherd takes one look at the motley crew and just runs away.
Sirât’s casting is spot-on. The ravers have a striking, powerful and authentic presence. The ravers were cast from the diverse, European street festival scene. The characters are given the performers’ own names, blurring the line between fiction and reality.
Ravers: Stef (Stefania Gadda), Bigu (Richard Bellamy), Josh (Joshua Liam Henderson), Jade (Jade Oukid) and Tonin (Tonin Janvier) were cast from the diverse dance scene. For example, Tonin Janvier is a French street festival performer. He lost a leg in a motorcycle accident (no CGI leg replacement here). What we see are deeply broken characters.
I must confess the rave sub/counter-culture is not a favourite of mine. I just see people willfully becoming confused, while their bodies are being battered by drugs and around-the-clock dancing. Raves seem more like endurance tests rather than moments of ecstasy, although they are probably both.
What really concerns me is the barely-beneath-the-surface anger. It was interesting to read that the director recognises this in himself. “I’m the son of workers, and as a result, I have a lot of rage inside me. I need to transfer my energy, you know? And I like to dance; I need to dance.”
The film opens with an eleven minute scene of a rave, accompanied by a moody soundtrack by David Letellier, aka Kangding Ray. The opening builds from scratchy, electronic sounds to pummeling, tribal beats.
Sirât is ambient film making at its finest, a film to sit with and let yourself become absorbed in its music, characters and landscape. There’s no requirement to find meaning in the film, it only requires acceptance. A story of being as much as doing, it combines moments of tension, fear and sadness together with a dark, dark humour.
Personally, I found Sirât a welcome relief after overdosing on the hyper-excitable, raw Hollywood of Project Hail Mary.
Tim Robins
Head downthetubes for…
• Interview: Oliver Laxe on Sirât (filmcomment.com)
• Existential Rave: Kangding Ray on Scoring âSirÄtâ – Filmmaker Magazine
• Interview: Oliver Laxe on Sirât – (movieswetextedabout.com)
- About the Author
- Latest Posts
A freelance journalist and Doctor Who fanzine editor since 1978, Tim Robins has written on comics, films, books and TV programmes for a wide range of publications including Starburst, Interzone, Primetime and TV Guide.
His brief flirtation with comics includes ghost inking a 2000AD strip and co-writing a Doctor Who strip with Mike Collins. Since 1990 he worked at the University of Glamorgan where he was a Senior Lecturer in Cultural and Media Studies and the social sciences. Academically, he has published on the animation industry in Wales and approaches to social memory. He claims to be a card carrying member of the Politically Correct, a secret cadre bent on ruling the entire world and all human thought.
Categories: downthetubes News, Features, Film, Other Worlds, Reviews
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