Summary
A thunderous, hallucinatory odyssey that channels grief, rage and ecstasy into something raw and unforgettable.
Few films this year match the sheer intensity of the first ten minutes of Óliver Laxe’s SIRÂT, its speaker-rattling bass pounding over a desolate desert landscape. EDM thunders beneath close-up shots of dancers. Bodies move in sync with the relentless rhythm. There’s almost no dialogue, just sound and motion. So when father Luis (Sergi López), bearing an uncanny resemblance to a Spanish Buddy Hackett, emerges with his young son Esteban (Bruno Núñez Arjona), they cut through the haze like strangers in an alien world.
Luis and Esteban begin handing out flyers of a missing woman, their daughter and sister respectively, latching onto a small group of ravers—Stef (Stefania Gadda), Bigui (Richard Bellamy), Josh (Joshua Liam Henderson), Tonin (Tonin Janvier) and Jade (Jade Oukid)—and follow them across the desert to the next rave.
We’re told in the opening text scrawl that Sirât means the bridge between hell and paradise, and it’s the purgatorial landscape that Laxe places his players in. Shot on Super 16mm by DP Mauro Herce, many have already compared this to Mad Max. As their vehicles tear across the deserts of southern Morocco (and, occasionally, southern Spain as a stand-in), and the music continues to blast, that’s true on the surface at least.
Laxe is more interested in these core characters, and their singular purpose of journeying up the metaphorical river as the world falls into apparent catastrophe elsewhere. Aside from López, who gives a wonderfully grounded performance that’s alternately desperate and grief-stricken, Laxe has largely cast non-professionals. So when tragedy strikes, or they’re imperilled by the harshness of their surroundings—or enjoying a fleeting celebratory moment—their reactions feel genuine.
While it would be difficult to maintain the sheer immediacy of those opening beats, Laxe’s screenplay (co-written with Santiago Fillol) keeps dropping surprises like dramatic needle drops. There are no spoilers here, of course, but the first major dramatic turn shifts the tone so completely that you could hear a pin drop in the cinema. Laxe doesn’t let us rest for long in the aftermath, turning another moment of respite into white-knuckle action in the tradition of Henri-Georges Clouzot.
Late in the film, someone asks, “Is this what the end of the world feels like?” The answer seems to be unequivocally yes. The end of the world is alternatively pulse-shaking. It’s filled with disasters quiet and loud. And it happens while you’re busy making other plans. In the end, SIRÂT is a rare beast: a roller coaster that stops to smell the roses.
2025 | France, Spain | DIRECTOR: Oliver Laxe | WRITERS: Santiago Fillol, Oliver Laxe | CAST: Sergi López, Brúno Nuñez, Stefania Gadda | DISTRIBUTOR: Sydney Film Festival 2025, Madman Entertainment (Australia) | RUNNING TIME: 115 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 4-15 June 2025 (SFF 2025)
