“Sirat” is an Arabic word meaning a bridge spanning the chasm between heaven and hell, one that is thin as a thread and sharp as a sword’s edge, as we are told at the start of the movie SIRAT, an Oscar-nominated Spanish drama about a man, with his young son in tow, who is searching for his lost 20-something daughter at a rave party in the south Moroccan desert. The word Sirat is Arabic and comes from Muslim belief, but there is little heavenly in SIRAT’s world. However, there is plenty of pulsing techno/electronic music, in this searing tale of a group of people on a dangerous journey crossing the north African desert, a journey that will challenge and maybe break them.
SIRAT, set in Morocco but mostly in Spanish and French, is nominated for both the Best International Feature and Best Sound at the upcoming Academy Awards. Director Oliver Laxe co-wrote the script with Santiage Fillol, and the tender and heartbreaking tale is driven by a tense, propulsive, pulsing techno/electronic score by Kangding Ray.
An ordinary-looking Spanish man, Luis (Sergi Lopez), enters a world of hundreds of mostly young, European revelers dancing trance-like in front of a wall of amps set up in the Moroccan desert, blasting electronic and techno music continuously, along with a laser light show at night. There is a sort of outsider vibe to this large collection of people who have come to the desert to dance away the conventional world. Luis is out of place but he and his son Esteban (Bruno Nunez Arjona) are there on a mission to find his daughter who disappeared at a rave five months earlier.
Esteban looks like he is about ten and has a little white dog with him, as he and his father wander among the dancers, day and night, showing everyone at the rave a photo of the missing grown daughter. The dancers are a ragtag crowd, seeming disconnected from the world, outsiders by choice or circumstance, but they politely look at the photo before shaking their heads, to say they have not seen her.
One group of five, Steff (Stefania Gadda), Josh (Joshua Liam Henderson), Tonin (Tonin Janvier), Jade (Jade Oukid), and Bigui (Richard “Bigui” Bellamy), tells Luis there is another rave after this one, which he might also check for his daughter.
On the second day of the rave party, a caravan of Moroccan army trucks shows up, and tell the crowd that “all EU citizens need to evacuate.” The military officers do not say why, but the event suggests an impending war or conflict. The military convoy is there to escort to Europeans in their trucks, vans and RVS out of the desert.
Luis and his son, in their van, line up with the rest of the vehicles leaving the location, but suddenly the two RVs in front of them, carrying the group of five who told Luis about the other rave party, suddenly bolt out of line and take off across the desert. At Esteban’s urging, Luis impulsively follows them, and they race ahead of military vehicles in pursuit.
That snap decision sends the father and son, with this ragtag collection of friends, on a strange, harrowing trek across very rugged, desolate terrain, to an uncertain fate.
Except for renown Spanish actor Sergi Lopez, the rest of the cast are all non-actors, mostly found by the director at raves he attended. That casting choice gives the film an authenticity in this world where it is set, but they are also compelling and charismatic characters on screen. The sweeping photography of the vast desert landscape combined with the driving electronic soundtrack creates a tense sense that anything may happen as well as an air of foreboding.
We are not told why those five, Steff, Josh, Tonin, Jade and Bigui, made that break, but there are hints that there may be reasons they do not want to return to Europe. We also do not know why the Moroccan army where herding the Europeans out of the country, but we hear snippets on the radio about war, before one of the ravers shuts it off, maybe preferring not to know, although one of them suggests it is WWIII.
Those unanswered questions give the film a party at the end of the world vibe but this is not a Mad Max knock off. The story is both tender and heartbreaking, with danger around every bend.
The ravers seem to know the back roads well, suggesting they may have been in northern Africa for some time, wandering from rave party to rave party. Although Luis is wary of these strangers at first, they extend kindness to him at unexpected moments and a bond forms. They are surprisingly resourceful and self-reliant but this is a harsh environment and circumstances where anything can happen, including death.
Director Oliver Laxe effectively builds tensions as these people wander in the desert hoping to avoid the world and its conflict by running ahead of it. Harrowing things happen, and there is a sense of doom and foreboding that is amped up by Kangding Ray’s techno score, which is a perfect fit. Heartbreak and horrendous things may lay down this rock-strewn road, and when tragedy does strike, things start to spin off unanticipated directions, as this gripping drama wavers between human tenderness and terrifying chance beyond their control. Walking the thin line that that title suggests, SIRAT is unforgettable drama that is worth the heartbreak.
SIRAT, mostly in Spanish and French with English subtitles, opens in select theaters on Friday, Mar. 6, 2026.
RATING: 3.5 out of 4 stars
