On the one hand, Sirāt (2025) is a rather formless, grim vision, but on the other there’s something unmistakably powerful about it — a stark, haunting ambience to its arduous journey. Set in the deserts of Morocco, the film follows the efforts of devoted father Luis (Sergi López) and his young son Esteban (Bruno Núñez) to track down Luis’s missing daughter, whom they’ve heard may be attending a rave. The search leads them to encounter a found family of itinerants who have retreated from civilization, and may be headed in the right direction. To continue the search, Luis labors to ingratiate himself and his son into their midst, but the site of the rave is extremely remote, and their strenuous travel toward it proves profoundly grueling.
Even after time for reflection, whether Sirāt is a satisfying viewing experience remains an open question for me, but there’s no denying it possesses a striking aesthetic and a subtle but compelling energy. A simple, linear story gradually evolves into a surreal epic that hovers somewhere between cryptic metaphor and a one-step-removed, speculative apocalypse, as the ravers journey farther and farther away from a society wracked by some nebulous global crisis. There’s a message in there somewhere, but it’s elusive — purposely, no doubt, to elicit thought about what the mobile community represents, why their connections matter, and how their fates are intrinsically entangled. Quiet moments mix with shocking turns as the party persists under increasingly difficult conditions, leading to an ambiguous, reflective finale. The overall shape doesn’t quite land, but as a gritty, rolling mosaic it’s full of moving and memorable moments. López’s shattering performance is the fulcrum around which is all revolves, but the peculiar raver collective — Richard Bellamy, Stefania Gadda, Joshua Liam Henderson, Tonin Janvier, and Jade Oukid, all untrained actors — are impressive in support. Not an easy movie to love, perhaps, but difficult not to respect.
