Oliver Laxe’s sweat-stained Sirât begins in the heart of an EDM rave where a sprawling mass of nirvana-seeking bodies are vibrating with pulse-pounding rhythm. The electricity of this extended opener sets the tone for the eclectic collection of free-spirited roamers we are set to encounter, with one glaring outlier. A father moves through the crowd alongside his young son, unmoved by the music, but rather in search of something much more desperate–his missing daughter. In the sun-scorched blaze, the pair distribute “missing” flyers in hopes of uncovering any information that can liberate them from the grief that has clearly plagued their family for a long time before their desert arrival.
The rave is a self-contained, fleeting utopia that feels like both an elixir for physical freedom and a ticking time bomb awaiting catastrophe. The camera moves like a participant, weaving through anonymous bodies, recalling Climax’s (2018) hypnotic opening dance sequences. But where Noé’s film descended into an isolated acid-fueled madness, Sirât recognizes the heavier external burdens weighing upon it. There’s an awareness of a looming war beyond the horizon, and that knowledge embeds a sense of dread and impending collapse.
The near wordless setup is thick with possibilities. A high-stakes search driven by family loss, a frenzied backdrop of sociopolitical tensions, and the impending friction between militarized nationalism and countercultural liberty are all on the table. For a while, Laxe keeps all of these options alive, but if there’s one thing in the air even more identifiable than desert dust and electronic airwaves, it’s the tangible scent of tragedy looming around every corner. The rave collapses by way of military intervention, and the film eventually settles instead upon a narrower route, transforming itself into an extended exercise in survival tension.
The father and son are subsumed into a smaller group of ravers who, out of a mix of compassion and necessity, take them in as their own as they flee the military’s grasp and set out into the desert. It’s at this moment that Laxe makes his most perplexing narrative move by all but abandoning the primary narrative motivation (the search for his missing daughter). The political and familial threads that once promised to drive the story dissolve, leaving only self-survival. It’s a jarring shift, and one that will frustrate viewers who crave resolution, but it also clears the way for what Laxe truly cares about with Sirât—the mechanics of suspense and the choreography of impending death.
Laxe has always been fascinated by spiritual searching by way of human beings trying to locate meaning in landscapes that seem indifferent to their suffering. Sirât continues this path in an even harsher and more brutal register. The desert they enter is not just a setting but an unrelenting expanse that erodes the mind, body, and psyche in equally devastating fashion.
From here, Sirât operates as an extended set piece, a pyrotechnic crescendo that pushes the audience into a sensory high. Sound becomes a dominant force, and every movement is highly calibrated with surgical intent. It’s the kind of filmmaking that leaves you hyperaware of your own body, tense and alert as if the violence on screen might spill out into the theater itself.
Yet, for all its technical achievements, there’s an undeniable sense of longing for the abandoned narrative strands—a harrowing search for a lost child, a sprawling war epic, a study of counterculture resistance—these are all movies left behind in favor of a well-designed but narratively thin set piece.
While it’s unfortunate that the story’s entry points evaporate in favor of sound and spectacle, the technical precision has the unadulterated gall to attempt to make up for it. The echoes of their brimming rave still reverberate, but the mood has shifted from liberation to paranoia. Laxe allows these characters to confront their pain by placing them in the wide expanse of the desert void to contemplate the spirituality of their isolating journey.
There’s something to be said for the purity of Laxe’s vision. It achieves a rare and potent form of immersion that makes you feel every bit of the pain and spiritual disenchantment of its characters deep in your bones. Laxe may have traded story for spectacle, but it’s a tradeoff with both rewards and consequences. Sirât is a testament to searching. Searching for people, for answers, and for purpose. Not much from this search is found for our troupe of lost souls, but it’s a devastating testament to never stop looking.
Review Courtesy of Danny Jarabek
Feature Image Courtesy of TIFF