Sirat (now streaming on Hulu) is the most unforgettable, and possibly unforgiving, film of 2025. Oliver Laxe’s gruelingly suspenseful dramatic thriller introduced the French-born Galician director’s work to his largest audience yet – previous films Mimosas and Fire Will Come earned acclaim at their Cannes Film Festival debuts, but Sirat truly broke through, earning Oscar nominations, for best sound and best international feature, that broadened its audience significantly. And what that new audience gets is an eye-opening introduction to Laxe’s intuitive and deeply symbolic filmmaking, which doesn’t shy away from serious psychic brutality.
SIRAT: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: We begin with a title card explaining that “sirat,” in Islamic texts, is a bridge between Hell and Paradise that all souls must cross – a bit of context that makes the final stretch of this film more thematically literal than it appears to be. But it takes a taxing journey to get there, a journey that begins in an undisclosed stretch of Moroccan desert, where weathered men assemble stacks of loudspeakers, battered from travel and covered with a thin veneer of sandy dust, into a massive and imposing PA system. In a long, still shot, it sits quietly like a monolith, and we imagine the waves of trance-inducing dance music traveling across the empty expanse, imagine the thudding beats in the ground, tactile beneath your feet. It’s not about sound, but something bigger: sensation. A gaggle of ravers turn up at this bizarrely holy pop-up dance party, and one gets the sense that this is their entire life. Their skin is leathery from exposure, and often heavily tattooed, the bronzing from the sun a kind of uniform that all but erases indicators of racial backgrounds; they live in their ramshackle trucks and RVs, nomads bartering their way from one rave to the next.
Two individuals clearly don’t fit in here: The greying, paunchy Luis (Sergi Lopez) and his son Esteban (Bruno Nunez Arjona), who appears to be about 12. While the ravers take drugs and bliss out, oblivious to the baking sun, Luis and Esteban pass out flyers with sober intent. Luis hasn’t heard from his daughter in five months. The implication is, she’s joined this quasi-religious, far-off-the-grid subculture. Luis may consider it a kidnapping, but leaving the bustle of broad conformity and society behind was likely her choice. Perhaps she doesn’t want to be found? Luis presses photocopied pictures of his daughter into ravers’ hands, and some treat him somewhat dismissively, like the “normie” among the “freaks,” but never aggressively. They may look intimidating, but one gets the sense that deep down, these people seek out peace rather than conflict.
A few ravers seem to understand the source of Luis’ concern, however, e.g., Jade (Jade Oukid), who tells Luis that she hasn’t seen her daughter, but she may turn up at the next rave being planned elsewhere. Jade seems to understand that his desire to find his daughter is as valid as her desire to get away. But physical and spiritual quests are waylaid when a line of military trucks rolls in. Soldiers explain that a national emergency has been declared, and break up the rave. Everyone packs up and forms an orderly column of vehicles. We hear snippets of radio news reports about war that are increasingly alarming, about countries quickly “taking sides.” Is this World War III? And will it reach this far into the vast, barren desert? Jade distracts a guard and her cohort – five people, two trucks – break from the line and zoom away. Luis guns his minivan, and compulsively follows them.
Where the ravers are going, exactly, isn’t certain. To us or to Luis or maybe even to the leaders of this small parade. Jade, Tonin (Tonin Janvier), Bigui (Richard Bellamy), Stef (Stefania Gadda) and Josh (Joshua Liam Henderson) are obviously experienced within this subculture, but they may be in uncharted territory now. They look warily at Luis until he ponies up some cash for cans of petrol they all need to get to the next rave – near the Mauritanian border, all the way across a vast portion of the Sahara. It isn’t just a utilitarian transaction; they establish trust as they camp out, share food and help each other navigate the unforgiving terrain. There’s real warmth among these people, but also desperation. And both steadily grow as their journey across this desolate expanse becomes increasingly uncertain.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Sirat is Steve McQueen’s Lovers Rock meets Mad Max: Fury Road and Nomadland if it was a directorial collaboration among Alejandro Jodorowsky, David Lynch, and Werner Herzog. And even then, Laxe’s film wriggles from the grip of easy comparison.
Performance Worth Watching: Oukid is Sirat’s breakout, found during Laxe’s casting process, which pulled the raver characters from a vast field of nonprofessional actors, all five of the principals extraordinary in their ability to bring truth and realism to the dramatic conceit. Acting through her stunningly expressive eyes, Oukid bears significant dramatic weight here, a true standout.
Sex And Skin: None.
Our Take: Heavily symbolic and teetering on a razor-thin line between harsh pragmatism and grand existentialism, Sirat is truly breathtaking. Breathtaking in the conventional metaphorical sense, in its cinematographic presentation of gorgeously empty landscapes. And literally, physically breathtaking as its harsh dramatic turns leave us gasping for air. Laxe is merciless. I was destroyed by Sirat. Destroyed.
But is it a portrait of hopelessness? That’s up for debate. As cinematographer Mauro Herce captures these bleak and lonely spaces, and composer Kangding Ray scores the drama with throbbing, oblique, hypnotically repetitive techno, Laxe composes a screenplay with some intent – the title reflects his Muslim faith, and the film absolutely can be read through the lens of that ideological perspective – but also as an exercise in wide-open interpretation, the desert functioning as a tabula rasa we fill in with our own knowledge and beliefs about the world.
Watching the film is a bewildering, provocative experience. It’s narratively daring and unconventional, flirting with the stuff of slow cinema and apocalyptic thrillers, but ultimately functioning within its own distinct style. It overwhelms us with imagery and an evocative, mysterious tone, never stooping to explain itself, its characters crafted from the fabric of real life (you get the sense that the nonprofessionals in the cast, who wear their own tattoos and carry their own physical impairments, may not be too far removed from the outsiderism of raver culture). Who these people are and where they come from is in their eyes and mannerisms, their kindness and complex inner lives reflected in their actions.
Of course, dialogue is unavoidable, but it’s sparse and deployed with potent intent. Laxe writes a thoughtful scene in which Jade shows Luis how a damaged speaker emits sounds that are never the same, and while the device symbolically reflects the unrevealed traumas of her wandering clan – Tonin lost a leg, Bigui a hand, and the others sure seem to have lost something less prevalent – it illustrates their innate need for movement, change, progress. Stability for some is comforting, and Luis seeks it in the pursuit of his lost daughter. But for others, it’s a prison, and Sirat’s contrast of the two feels pointedly political.
Laxe boldly probes the emotional tones of togetherness and loneliness, of deathless hope and unavoidable dread, with great intensity as his characters cross over from one profound emotion to the next: individuality becoming collectivism, suspicion becoming love, joy becoming sorrow, hope becoming despair. On one hand, Sirat is a near-plotless meander, and on the other, it’s a straight-line excursion into grim uncertainty – a hangout film with a death pact. We can only hope that what lies beyond this world is more merciful.
Our Call: If you’re open to its beauties and horrors, Sirat will brand itself on your soul. STREAM IT.
John Serba is a freelance film critic from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Werner Herzog hugged him once.
