SIRAT
- Colin Fraser
- Feb 26
- 2 min read
FOUR STARS In the crowd at a desert rave, a father is looking for his missing daughter.
DRAMA SPAIN Spanish #SIRAT Starring Sergi López, Bruno Núñez Arjona
In some rock strewn corner of a Moroccan desert, a rave is taking place. A father hauls his young son through the crowd, chasing rumours of a missing daughter he hopes to find. When rumours that a war has started in the ‘real world’, he falls in with a ragged convoy as they drift from one dust-blown gathering to the next. He hopes to find his daughter, they hope to avoid authority (and accountability). Perhaps they simply hope to survive.
SIRAT begins as a quest but soon becomes something looser, stranger, and considerably less survivable. Director Oliver Laxe doesn’t so much guide his film as pin it down, daring it to wriggle free. His style is confrontational; scenes stretch into the realm of uncomfortable with a sound design pulsing like a constant threat. He uses the desert not as a mere backdrop, it’s a controlling force. Think MAD MAX goes to a rave where the location is judge, jury, and likely executioner.
When tragedy strikes in the most shocking way (you will squirm, you will gasp), and the missing daughter - initially a narrative anchor - begins to recede, the film becomes more diffuse and unsettling. The group shrinks and intentions blur, their journey feels less like a quest and as they forfeit control, and purpose begins to rot in the heat.
Clearly this isn’t a romanticised view of dance culture. Laxe eyes his drifters with a degree of scepticism, gently puncturing notions of spiritual escape, communal purity, and desert-born enlightenment. They’re not dancing, merely twitching in the sun. No one here is quite as profound as they think they are.
There are many appealing production choices, from sunburnt cinematography to the relentless soundscape but it is casting that is a quiet masterstroke. Laxe has resisted polished screen presence in favour of worn, occasionally confronting faces that feel entirely real (Burning Man turned up to eleven). It’s a decision that underpins the film's surreal quality and raises the stakes when their world folds in on itself.
As the story opens out to it’s visceral conclusion, SIRAT has become both monstrous and grimly believable. Here’s a film that doesn’t pull its punches and, in fairness, is not for everyone. It's not for many to be honest. Yet in its own dust-choked way, the extraordinarily punishing experience is a deeply human and unexpectedly rewarding one.
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